Catch them young with their family: Strategy for Atal Pension Yojana

Catch them young and also with their family is the strategy to be followed to expand the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), said a top official of Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).

He also said the subscriber base for National Pension Scheme (NPS) will grow from the corporate sector and even if the state governments opt for old pension scheme for their employees.

PFRDA has decided to allow the subscribers of the NPS to withdraw 60 per cent of the accumulated corpus in a systematic manner instead of the current system of one time withdrawal.

Speaking to the media here on Friday, Deepak Mohanty, PFRDA Chairperson, said the strategy for APY is to focus on enrolling all the family members who are 18 years of age so that the pension benefit is available to all the subscribers.

He was here for a strategy meeting with the bankers on spreading the APY a pension scheme for unorganised sector people.

As per the scheme administered by PFRDA, a subscriber will get a pension of Rs 1000-Rs 5,000 depending on the contribution from the age of 60.

Currently, the APY has about 5.4 crore subscribers (male 54.53 per cent, female 45.44 per cent, transgender 0.03 per cent) of that those in the age bracket of 18-20 are about 92 lakh.

The age breakup of other subscribers are: 21-25 years - about 1.49 crore; 26-30 years 1.3 crore; 31-35 years - about 1.0 crore and above 35 years - about 59.50 lakh, Mohanty said.

Queried about the impact on the subscriber base with several political parties announcing reverting to old pension scheme for the state government employees Mohanty said while the subscriber base may go down initially, the growth in numbers will come from the corporate sector.

He also said PFRDA during the second half of this fiscal will allow the subscribers of the NPS to withdraw 60 per cent of the accumulated corpus in a systematic manner instead of the current system of one time withdrawal.

Presently, a subscriber has to go for annuity for 40 per cent of the corpus and the balance 60 per cent to be taken out in one go.

Last fiscal, the total number of subscribers for NPS was 10 lakh and the target fresh enrollment for FY24 is 13 lakh, Mohanty said.