Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the retirement fund body, has invested Rs 27,105 crore in exchange-traded funds (ETFs) during the current fiscal till October, Parliament was informed on Monday. EPFO had invested Rs 53,081 crore in the ETFs during the fiscal 2022-23, higher than Rs 43,568 crore in 2021-22, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Rameshwar Teli said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.
The reply showed that the EPFO has invested Rs 27,105 crore in the ETFs so far in the current fiscal 2023-24 till October 2023. The body had invested Rs 14,983 crore in ETFs in 2016-17, Rs 24,790 crore in 2017-18, Rs 27,974 in 2018-19, Rs 31,501 crore in 2019-20 and Rs 32,071 in 2020-21, according to the reply. In the Lok Sabha, Teli clarified that the EPFO does not invest directly in individual stocks, including stocks of any blue-chip company.
EPFO invests in equity markets through ETFs, replicating BSE-Sensex and Nifty-50 indices, Teli said. It has also invested from time to time in ETFs constructed specifically for disinvestment of shareholding of the central government in body corporates, he informed the House. The body invests funds as per the investment pattern notified by the government, he said.
The total corpus of various funds managed by the EPFO as of March 31, 2022, was Rs 18.30 lakh crore, out of which 8.70 per cent is invested in ETFs and 91.30 per cent are in debt investments, including Public Account of India. The EPFO started investing in the ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in August 2015.
The EPFO saw a net addition of 17.21 lakh members in September, according to the payroll data. Comparatively, the data indicated an increase of 21,475 net members during August 2023. The yearly comparison of the data revealed that 38,262 net members were added over September 2022. Among these new members, about 58.92 per cent of overall new members belonged to the age group of 18 to 25 years. This indicated that youth formed the majority of the members joining the organised sector.