Minister for Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge has said an e-passbook facility, in which individuals can view and print their employee provident fund passbooks without having to go through employers, would be launched by the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).

Speaking at the 200th meeting of the Central Board of Trustees of the EPFO in the capital today, the Minister emphasised upon the increasing the scope of investment inclusive of the safety of funds.

The Board today gave green signal to the retirement fund body to park its funds in fixed deposits up to five years, short term securities and certificate of deposits of public sector banks. The EPFO has a corpus of Rs 3.5 lakh crore and needs to increase its returns on investments to provide higher rate of interest to subscribers.

AIR correspondent said the provident fund was an amount that was disbursed to an individual after he left a job or retired. The amount is contributed by the employer as well as the employee over the duration of an employee's service in an organisation.

The Indian Employees' Provident Fund Organisation is one of the largest provident fund institutions in the world in terms of members and volume of financial transactions that it has been carrying on.