Private cos to manage EPF

Private cos to manage EPF
DH News Service, New Delhi:
Brushing aside opposition from Leftist trade unions, the Centre on Tuesday decided to bring in three private players Reliance Cap, ICICI Prudential and HSBC to manage employees provident fund totalling about Rs 2.5 lakh crore.
“The Central Board of Trustees have decided to allow Reliance Capital, ICICI Prudential, HSBC along with the state-owned State Bank of India to manage provident fund of employees,” Labour Secretary Sudha Pillai said after a meeting of the trustees here. The meeting was chaired by Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes. Referring to the issue of allocation of fund, Pillai said the corpus fund would be proportionately allocated to the four fund managers and that would be decided in the next meeting. The entry of private players might help EPFO to offer high interest rate to its four crore subscribers as against the present rate of 8.5 per cent. However, a member of the Board of Trustees, who is also a leader of the CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union Congress told Deccan Herald that initially the name of Anil Ambani-headed Reliance Cap was not in the shortlist and it was added later. “We were astonished when the name of Reliance Cap was announced at the fag end of the meeting and despite our protests the names were approved through majority vote in a hurried manner,” he said. The labour leader also said that Leftist trade unions would meet on Wednesday to finalise their strategy to oppose this decision and they would also include this issue in the general strike on August 20.