It is reported that the government has taken a serious note of the poor returns on the EPFO fund, from the Fund Managers dealing with the Funds.
The Employees Provident Fund organisation has got about 4.72 crore subscribers and about Rs. 30,000 crore are added every month through the subscriptions. These funds are allocated to the Fund Managers, mainly banks etc, which will have to give good returns so that the subscribers can get benefit out of the same.
In 2008 35% Fund was allocated to SBI, 25% to ICICI Securities and 20% each to Reliance Capital and HSBC. The period is for three years and the the same has ended by March 31st of this year. While ICICI earned 8.72%, HSBC earned 8.64%, SBI 8.61% and reliance 8.57%. This is less than the 9.5% interest granted to the subscribers by the EPFO and hence insufficient.
Further, there is the danger of earning very less returns and also loss sometimes according to the market variations. That is why the workers have been opposing the utilisation of the Pension Fund for the market purposes. It is the hard earned money of the workers and can not be allowed to be misused by the corporates.