We will discuss it in the next meeting to be held in 15-20 days," Dattatreya, who chaired the trustees' meeting, said.Earlier last year in June, the Centre brought a package for the textile and apparel sector which was later extended to made-ups also in December 2016.This introduction is expected to bring down the cost for employers for transactions and will facilitate more options for employers/employees to transact with the EPFO..However, the EPFO wanted to deliberate on the proposed move of raising its investments in ETF in the meeting of its apex decision making body CBT.During the 216th special meeting of the CBT here, the body has decided to extend Employee Enrollment Campaign till June 30, 2017.The body was so conscious that the trustees and government top brass on board of the CBT chose exchange trade funds for their venture into the stock market.The board of trustees, it said, has also decided to allow banks to collect contributions from employers and make payments to employees in addition to SBI, nationalised banks and payGov platform through direct net banking services. Taking cautious steps, the retirement fund body had decided to invest only 5 per cent of its investible deposits of around Rs 1 lakh crore every year into stock market inAugust 2015."The proposal was not discussed. The exempted establishments are those employers who manage their workers EPF accounts as well as funds themselves. The campaign aims to enroll left out employees and provides incentives to employers in the form of waiver of administrative charges, nominal damages at Re 1 per annum and waiver of employees share if not deducted.

The proposal is aimed at providing health cover to EPFO pensioner, who get very little amount as pension and hence healthcare is out of their reach."Trade unions are of the view that this move will encourage such an exemption for other sectors as well in future and might defeat the purpose of retirement savings.Besides, the trustees also # decided to allow all banks including private ones to collect contributions from employers and make payments to employees in addition to SBI, nationalised banks and payGov platforms on a pilot basis. For collection of contributions through aggregator, competitivebids may be called for from all banks, it said.At present, all those employees getting up to Rs 15,000 per month basic wages are required be mandatorily covered under the EPFO scheme. All trade union leaders on board of the CBT have opposed the move saying it would set a new precedent of giving exemptions from making PF contributions by workers. Anganwadi, ASHA, mid-day meal workers under the ambit of EPFO.

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