Just as the country’s Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) started investing a small part (Rs 5000 crore) of its Rs 8.5 lakh crore corpus into equities, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
(PFRDA) is gearing up to allow private-sector fund managers to manage its Rs 88,000 crore assets.
In an interview with CNBC-TV18, PFRDA Chairman Hemant Contractor told Sapna Das the organization had made a pitch to the Finance Ministry in the regard.
The recommendation to allow private sector fund managers to manage its corpus was made by the Bajpai committee, Contractor said. “We see some merit in that recommendation and forwarded it to the government. It is currently engaging its attention,” he said.
Currently, eight managers (including private sector managers such as ICICI, Kotak, Reliance, HDFC and Birla Sun Life) manage the Rs 6,300-crore portion made up by investments from private sector employees into the National Pension Scheme. But only LIC, SBI and UTI manage the remaining assets, made up from investments from central and state government employees.
