new delhi the private trusts which manage employees provident fund epf schemes are finding it difficult to match 95 return that governmentrun trust has offered to give employees under its umbrella for 201011 according to the epf regulation private trusts are bound to match the return offered by the government trustthe employees provident fund organisation epfo on wednesday announced a 95 return for 201011 on the back of discovery of a hidden surplus of rs 173152 crore the organization was giving a return of 85 for the last five yearssuch a huge surplus was accumulated over a long period of time due to some miscalculation in accounts so epfo may not able to offer this kind of return in 201112most of the large companies manage their employees provident funds through their own trusts instead of contributing to epfomanaged fund pool these trusts are complaining that they do not have such windfall gain as it happened in case of the epfo trust and they will face shortfalls in incomes to give 95 returns finance director of a private sector company said it will have to contribute from its own resources to match 95 returnkulin patel head of employees benefits practice of a global retirement benefit consultancy firm towers watson india said a number of companies have approached him to find out shortfalls in their books of trusts to give 95 return patel said almost 60 of the companies are facing shortfalls so they need to pay from their pockets to fill the gapspatel said reduction in the interest rates on government securities in the last 10 years has led to this shortfall earlier the government securities used to offer a return of 12 as epf trusts are not allowed to trade in government securities they kept these highyield instruments this kept their average returns high now most of those highyield securities are maturing and trusts are forced to invest in securities offering interest rates in the range of 7 to 8 so going forward epf trusts will find it difficult to give even 85 return on funds they are managingit is learnt that most of the trusts are going to appeal to the finance ministry which is yet to approve the epfos proposal to give 95 return however it is unlikely that finance ministry will scrap such a popular decision considering the fact that it does not have to contribute any money an official said when governmentappointed trust found that in the last around fifty years it earned more than it had distributed why the private trusts which call them more efficient do not have similar experiencesthe private companies volunteered to run their own trusts claiming that they would give higher returns compared to the government trust they started their operation with this premise only they should keep it said the officialtaking a hitepfo promised 95 return for 201011 on the back of discovery of a hidden surplus of rs 173152 crore the organization was giving a return of 85