PFRDA allows funds to invest in sovereign green bonds

New Delhi: Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Chairman Deepak Mohanty on Tuesday said the regulator will allow pension funds to invest in sovereign green bonds.

The government is expected to issue sovereign green bonds in the second half of the current financial year as part of the overall market borrowing programme. Last financial year, the government raised Rs16,000 crore from the maiden issuance of Sovereign Green Bonds (SGrBs) for funding public-sector projects seeking to reduce carbon emissions. The regulator will allow pension fund to invest in sovereign green bonds as and when issued, Mohanty said.

Currently, there are 10 pension fund managers that manage funds under the National Pension System. Talking about Atal Pension Yojana (APY) saturation drive, Mohanty said 29 lakh new subscribers have been enrolled under the scheme during the first quarter of the current financial year. The regulator has set a target of 1.3 crore new subscribers to be added under the APY scheme in FY24 as against 1.2 crore in FY23. In all, 5.2 crore enrolments have taken place since the launch of the scheme.

APY is the guaranteed pension scheme of the government that provides monthly pensions in the range of Rs1,000-Rs5,000 to self and spouse with the return of accumulated corpus to the surviving nominees.

On Tuesday, PFRDA reviewed the performance and strategies of banks and State Level Banker’s Committees (SLBCs) for 2023-24 to accelerate comprehensive coverage of APY. Also, the achievers for the previous year’s performance were felicitated during a programme.

The SLBCs in the north zone contributed significantly towards the annual target of FY 2022-23, with Uttar Pradesh achieving 165 per cent of the target followed by Madhya Pradesh (145 per cent) and Rajasthan (117 per cent), Mohanty said. Similarly, he said, the Regional Rural Banks of the zone have also performed well with Baroda UP Bank achieving 161 Average Account Per Branch (AAPB). It was followed by Aryavart Bank (132 AAPB) and Madhya Pradesh Gramin Bank (115 AAPB). As on July 15, he said, APY coverage in the states of the north zone has surpassed 1.98 crore.