Corporate Affairs Ministry open to amending IEPF norms to ensure compliance

The Corporate Affairs Ministry is open to amending norms, if required, pertaining to Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) as current compliance levels are not up to expectations, according to a senior official.

Set up under the Companies Act, 2013, IEPF's primary purpose is to protect the interest of investors. When there are unclaimed dividends for seven years, then that amount as well as the underlying shares are transferred to the IEPF account.

Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas said the IEPF Authority, which is a new body, is facing many challenges.

"It is a new body. It is facing many challenges. We are finding that the compliances are not much as they should have been. We are still at a stage where we are diagnosing the whole issues.

"There are requirements where you tweak the law also with IEPF's mandate and whatever provisions are there to ensure compliance," he said here Wednesday.

Srinivas, who is also the Chairperson of the authority, unveiled a new logo for it.

In the past two months, he said that around 1,500 claims are coming to the IEPF every month and that it has refunded more than Rs 20 billion to the claimants.

More than Rs 20.19 billion was transferred to the IEPF in financial year 2018.

The IEPF Authority has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the CSC E-Governance Services India Ltd, wherein the latter would identify village level entrepreneurs for investor awareness projects, among other activities.