New Delhi, March 13 -- A significant part of your financial planning is making arrangements for your retirement. For this, the public provident fund (PPF), employees provident fund (EPF), and voluntary provident fund (VPF) are reliable and safe tools at the disposal of a conservative investor looking for consistent long-term returns.

Launched by the Government of India, PPF, EPF and VPF are savings schemes with generally high rate of interest and tax-free payout, making these an effective instrument for retirement planning.

PPF is a government backed savings scheme, with guaranteed tax-exemption on investment, maturity amount and interest earned (aka EEE benefit), at a fixed interest rate of 7.1% this quarter. It is among the safest inv...