new delhi retirement fund manger epfos apex decision making body central board of trustees cbt today deferred a decision on investing 35 per cent of its rs 257 lakh crore corpus in stock indicesthe board also postponed till next meeting a decision on increasing the minimum wage limit to rs 15000 per month for mandatory deduction in provident fund by employers at present the cap is set at rs 6500 a monthwe have not scheduled the next meeting of the cbt but surely in the next two or three months we would meet again to take up remaining issues labour minister mallikarjun kharge who also heads the cbt told reporters after the meetingtrustees also put off a decision on the issue of allowing epfo to purchase governmentbacked bonds with maturity period of more than 10 years from the secondary marketsince the members wanted a detailed discussion on various investments of employees provident fund organisation epfo corpus the matter of making investments in stock indices governmentbacked bonds and increasing the minimum wage limit for the purpose of provident fund have been postponed kharge saidinvestment of 35 per cent of epfo corpus means a flow of up to rs 13000 crore into stock indicesearlier this week epfos advisory body facing strong opposition from the unionists members on board the finance and investment committee fic had turned down the finance ministrys proposal to invest 35 per cent of funds in stock indicessecretaries of the two bodies bhartiya mazoor sangh and hind mazoor sabha b n rai and a d nagpal outrightly rejected the proposal during the meetingit is a general practice that the advisory body fics recommendations are upheld by cbtthe finance ministry in august last year proposed to invest up to 15 per cent of the epfo corpus in stocks but when it did not find favour with fic and cbt it proposed an investment of 35 per cent of the corpus in indiceshowever the fic had favoured purchase of governmentbacked bonds with maturity period of more than 10 years from the secondary market in its earlier meeting held on august 18 this yearthe issue of increasing wage ceiling to rs 15000 per month could have found favour in the cbt meeting today as a parliamentary standing committee on labour has already recommended to do so