Econ­o­mist Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon has warned that sim­ply in­creas­ing con­tri­bu­tions will not be enough to sus­tain the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Fund, call­ing for broad­er re­forms such as grad­u­al­ly rais­ing the re­tire­ment age to re­flect longer life ex­pectan­cy.

Ar­joon al­so rec­om­mend­ed in­creas­ing the fund’s in­vest­ment al­lo­ca­tion to in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets to strength­en its long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty.

“A high­er al­lo­ca­tion to glob­al mar­kets could in­crease fund val­ue over time, as in­ter­na­tion­al eq­ui­ties may bring stronger re­turns than do­mes­tic as­sets, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en deep­er liq­uid­i­ty, broad­er sec­tor ex­po­sure—like tech­nol­o­gy, health­care, AI—and stronger long-term growth trends in de­vel­oped mar­kets,” he ex­plained.