New Delhi: An advisory body of retirement
fund manager EPFO today turned down the finance ministry's
proposal to invest 3-5 per cent of Rs 2.57 lakh crore corpus
in stock indices.
The Finance and Investment Committee (FIC), which gives
its recommendations to EPFO's Central Board of Trustees (CBT),
rejected the proposal in its meeting today, sources said.
The apex body, CBT, is likely to take the final call on
the issue on December 5.
It is a general practice that the advisory body FIC's
recommendations are upheld by CBT.
The proposal to invest 3 to 5 per cent of Employees'
Provident Fund Organisation corpus in indices, if accepted,
means a massive Rs 13,000 crore flow into equity markets.
The Finance Ministry had proposed in August last year to
invest up to 15 per cent of the EPFO corpus in stocks. But
when it did not find favour with FIC as well as CBT, it
proposed an investment of 3-5 per cent of the corpus in
indices.
The proposal meant that money could be invested in
indices like Sensex, S&P CNX Nifty.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, December 01, 2009, 19:55