EPFO’s board has decided to invest a portion of annual deposits in infrastructure investment trusts

The central board of trustees of the employees’ provident fund organisation (EPFO) has unanimously approved investing a small percentage of its annual deposits in infrastructure investment trusts (InvITs).

InvITs allow owners of infrastructure assets to monetise them and function like mutual funds, which ensure regular returns on investment.

According to official sources, the decision to invest a percentage of annual deposits in InvITs was taken during the meeting of EPFO’s central board of trustees, which was held on Saturday (November 20).

The board decided to empower the finance investment and audit committee (FIAC) to decide upon the investment options on case-to-case basis, for investment in all such asset classes which are included in the pattern of investment as notified by the government, a statement issued by the labour ministry after the meeting, said.

It also gave its clearance to set up four sub-committees. These include panels on establishment related issues, futuristic implementation of social security code, digital capacity building and on pension related matters.

During the meeting, the board of trustees also cleared for developing a centralised IT-enabled system by C-DAC, after which, field functionalities will move on a central database in a phased manner enabling smoother operations and enhanced service delivery.

The centralised system will facilitate de‐duplication and merger of all provident fund accounts of any member. It will remove the requirement of transfer of account on change of job.