Atal Pension Yojana: The Finance Ministry has recently notified that 65 lakh registrations have been completed so far under the government’s Atal Pension Yojana during this financial year. The government said that this has taken the total number of registrations under the pension scheme to 3.68 crore in the last six and a half years. Giving the news, the Pension Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) expressed hope that if people continue to register in the scheme at this pace till March 31, then this year this number will cross the one crore mark. Atal Pension Yojana, or APY, is a government-backed social security scheme for senior citizens.
Atal Pension Yojana, the flagship social security scheme of the Government of India, was launched on 9th May, 2015 to provide old age income security to the citizens especially in the unorganized sectors. It gives a pension of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 to the subscribers on reaching the retirement age of 60 years, depending on the proportion of the contributions made by them.
“The journey of over six and a half years since the inception of Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has been real with 3.68 crore enrollments. The performance in this financial year has been good as over 65 lakh customers have enrolled, which is the highest ever enrollment during the same period since the launch of the scheme, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, PFRDA said, “Apart from receiving one crore enrollments during this current financial year, going forward, we have the task of achieving pension saturation in the country and we will continuously take proactive initiatives to achieve the same.”
“This feat of bringing the most vulnerable sections of the society under the ambit of pension was possible only with the untiring efforts of public and private banks, regional rural banks, payment banks, small finance banks, co-operative banks, the Department of Posts and others. The support given by the committees of state level bankers,” he also said.
What are the salient features of Atal Pension Yojana (APY)?
Atal Pension Yojana is becoming increasingly popular among the masses since its launch in May 2015. The salient features of Atal Pension Yojana are:
a) Any person between the age of 18 to 40 can enroll in this scheme to get benefits after retirement age. A guaranteed pension of up to Rs 5,000 per month will be provided by the government based on the subscriber’s contribution made over the years. This scheme is open to all bank account holders.
b) Monthly pension of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 will be available till the subscriber is alive. After his death, the pension will go to his/her spouse and after their death, the pension amount deposited by the subscriber at the age of 60 will be returned to the subscriber’s nominee.
c) The contribution made under this scheme gets the same benefit as one gets under the National Pension System (NPS) scheme. The contribution made by you under this Atal Pension Yojana scheme can be used to avail tax benefits under section 80CCD(1B) of the Income Tax Act.
d) The government will guarantee the minimum pension. This means that if the accumulated corpus based on contributions earns less than the projected return on investment and is insufficient to provide a minimum guaranteed pension, the central government will fund such inadequacy. Alternatively, if the return on investment is high, the subscribers will get enhanced pension benefits.
e) Subscriber can voluntarily exit Atal Pension Yojana subject to certain conditions on deduction of Government co-contribution and return or interest thereon.
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