Atal Pension Yojana

Atal Pension Yojana

Subject: Government Schemes

Context: Atal Pension Yojana has emerged as the most popular social security scheme under the National Pension System with over 2.8 crore subscribers, mainly from the non-metro centres.

Concept:

Total assets under management (AUM) for the National Pension System schemes saw a year-on-year growth of over 38 per cent, and stood at ₹5.78 lakh crore at the end of the year. NPS had 4.2 crore registered users.

Ranking Pension Schemes

• Atal Pension Yojana has emerged as the most popular social security scheme under the National Pension System with over 2.8 crore subscribers,
• The State Government Scheme ranks second with 11 per cent share,
• The central autonomous bodies (CAB) continued to account for the least number of subscribers of NPS with a share of 1 per cent,
• State autonomous bodies (SAB) with a share of 2 per cent.

Atal Pension Yojana

• The scheme was launched on 9th May, 2015, with the objective of creating a universal social security system for all Indians, especially the poor, the under-privileged and the workers in the unorganised sector.
• Administered By: Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority through National Pension System (NPS).
• Any citizen of India can join the APY scheme. The age of the subscriber should be between 18-40 years. The contribution levels would vary and would be low if a subscriber joins early and increases if she joins late.

Benefits:

• It provides a minimum guaranteed pension ranging from Rs 1000 to Rs 5000 on attaining 60 years of age.
• The amount of pension is guaranteed for lifetime to the spouse on death of the subscriber.
• In the event of death of both the subscriber and the spouse, the entire pension corpus is paid to the nominee.
• Contributions to the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) are eligible for tax benefits similar to the National Pension System (NPS).

National Pension System

• NPS is a government-sponsored pension scheme. It was launched in 2004 for government employees.
• Now, any individual citizen of India (both resident and non-resident) in the age group of 18-65 can join NPS.