NEW DELHI: The government is considering using more than Rs 43,000 crore of unclaimed provident fund money to provide a fillip to its flagship schemes such as Swachh Bharat Abhiyan and Housing for All.
Officials said the idea is being firmed up at the government's think tank NITI Aayog, which has been entrusted with not just monitoring but also implementation of key schemes so that the projects are not delayed due to insufficient fund flow. "We are looking into the proposition of taking a loan from EPFO's unclaimed kitty to partially pump money into some of our schemes," asenior official of NITI Aayog told ETon condition of anonymity.
The proposal is still at a nascent stage and it is yet to be decided whether this would be in the form of a loan or bonds, the official said. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation recently committed itself to crediting interest into the unclaimed accounts with effect from this year, reversing the decision of the previous UPA government.