Sivasubramanian Ramann, chairman, PFRDA | Photocredit: EOS5D4
The Pension Fund Regulatory & Development Authority (PFRDA) is working on alleviating the friction issues that do not allow pension funds to bring freely money in more innovative ways such as real estate investment trusts (REIT) and Infrastructure Investment Trusts (Invit).
Sivasubramanian Ramann, chairman, PFRDA, noted that there is always that gap between what is allowed (under the investment guidelines of the authority) and what becomes operational on the ground.
‘Work in progress’
“That’s why we are working on it [the gap] While we speak, and we try to alleviate the friction issues that now exist, that do not allow the pension funds to release money in these more innovative ways of financing, “he said in his keynote address at the National Bank for the financing of infrastructure and the annual infrastructure of development.
Ramann emphasized that PFRDA’s regulations help the pension funds to invest in different assets. He noted that PFRDA allows pension funds (PFS) to invest in listed companies, which are in the top 250 shares in terms of full market capitalization.
Furthermore, PFS can invest in effects issued for development, construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure, in infrastructure bonds, debt certificate from Invits and Reit’s and infrastructure debt funds.
Ramann underlined that PFS can make investments in infrastructure companies that are no less than ‘A’, together with an expected loss paving of ‘EL1’.
Moreover, these funds are permitted to invest in commercial mortgage -based effects or on a home -based effects on mortgage, which offers diversification by means of podded retailing.
The combined subscriber base under NPS (National Pension System) and APY (Atal Pension Yojana) reached 8.4 crore in March 2025, with an AUM of £ 14.4 Lakh Crore, which is mainly invested in fixed -income instruments, according to PFRDA.
“At the end of March 2025 we just did a fast back of the envelope calculation and discovered that the NPS card, which is aimed at the infrastructure sector, is around £ 2.3 Lakh Crore, which forms approximately 16 percent of the AUM of pension funds.
“So these are of course small numbers, but we would expect that we can increase this if we continue,” said Ramann.
Long -term assets
He noted that pension funds that needed long -term assets, making investments in long pregnancy infrastructure assets a very natural choice.
In this respect, the PFRDA chef noted that the entire concept of Netto Activa-Value-driven pension fund therefore militates against the entire concept of the volatility of the bonds.
“And that is why that is a different area we look at-which we cannot look at a low-mature bonds and leftover can be available for investment classification [of the customers of the pension fund and also equally…the utilisation of the funds that are gathered from the subscribers]. So you know, it’s something we really have to work, “he said.
Published on September 18, 2025
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