 "EPFO")
The total investment by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in more than seven years has crossed Rs 2.5 trillion, Minister of State in the Labour Ministry Rameswar Teli told the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Responding to a query on investments by the EPFO in debt instruments and ETFs, the minister said Rs 27,105 crore were invested during the current financial year until October. The EPFO had invested Rs 53,081 crore in ETFs in 2022-23, higher than Rs 43,568 crore in 2021-22.
The body had invested Rs 14,983 crore in ETFs in 2016-17, Rs 24,790 crore in 2017-18, Rs 27,974 crore in 2018-19, Rs 31,501 crore in 2019-20, and Rs 32,071 crore in 2020-21, according to the reply.
Besides, the minister said the EPFO does not invest directly in individual stocks, including stocks of any blue-chip company.
“The EPFO invests in equity markets through ETFs, replicating BSE-Sensex and Nifty-50 indices. It has also invested from time to time in ETFs constructed specifically for disinvestment of shareholding of the central government in body corporates,” the reply said.
As reported earlier by Business Standard, the total amount in the investment corpus of the social security organisation has grown by 16.7 per cent in FY23 to Rs 21.3 trillion from Rs 18.3 trillion in 2021-22 (FY22).
The EPFO had started investing 5 per cent of its corpus in ETFs based on the S&P BSE Sensex and National Stock Exchange Nifty50 in August 2015 to earn higher income on its investments. The limit was subsequently raised to 15 per cent.
