The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) plans to seek approval from the board to redeem its investments in the CPSE and Bharat 22 Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) during the ongoing fiscal year 2025–26. However, it does not intend to redeem holdings in other ETF schemes, as it aims to extend their investment tenure from four to five years.
If the proposal is approved by the board, this will generate an expected capital gain of Rs 17,237 crore, which will be credited to the interest account by the retirement body for distribution among EPF members as annual interest later this year.
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The organisation is also planning to seek board approval for EPFO 3.0, a project expected to completely revamp its IT infrastructure and related systems.This system is expected to cater to social security benefits for gig and platform workers and will also help handle higher workloads as the EPFO adds more subscribers, either through the Employment Linked Incentive Scheme (ELIS) or under the Code of Social Security 2020, once it is notified.
The Central Board of Trustees (CBT) of EPFO is scheduled to meet on Sunday under the chairmanship of Mansukh Mandaviya and is expected to deliberate on 18 agenda items.
The CBT is the supreme decision-making body of EPFO and includes representatives from employers, employees, state governments, and the central government.
As per the investment pattern notified by the Finance Ministry, 5–15% of fresh accretions must be allocated to equities and related instruments under Category (iv). Since receiving board approval in 2017, the EPFO has been investing up to 15% of its incremental funds in ETFs classified under Categories iv (c) and iv (d).
Investments under Category iv (c) are made daily, while those under Category iv (d)—which replicate the BSE Bharat 22 and NSE Nifty CPSE indices—were carried out in multiple tranches between 2017 and 2020.
As of now, EPFO manages more than 300 million member accounts and has a corpus of nearly Rs 28 lakh crore.
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