I was recently quoted in Moneycontrol in an article titled “How 8.25% EPF interest rate has one more goody in its bag?”
At retirement, you will get your entire corpus (EPF + VPF) back. Till then, your money is locked. However, the EPFO rules allow you to prematurely make partial withdrawals from your corpus for specific purposes such as house purchase, children’s education, treatment of critical illnesses, unemployment and so on. “Such instruments can be part of debt allocation in your portfolio but best suited solely for retirement, as these are fairly illiquid.”
If you are investing with your retirement goal in mind, he recommends investing across VPF, PPF and NPS (National Pension System). “Out of your total intended retirement oriented investments) you can invest the initial Rs 2.5 lakh in EPF/VPF, the next Rs 1.5 lakh in PPF and the balance amount can be directed towards NPS.”
You can read the full article here – link