NEW DELHI, June 17(PTI): In a bid to bring in more people-friendly initiatives, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) intends to introduce a plan during the second half of this fiscal, to allow the subscribers of the National Pension Scheme (NPS) to withdraw 60% of the accumulated corpus in a systematic manner instead of the current system of a one-time withdrawal.
As per the proposal, NPS subscribers would be allowed to systematically withdraw 60% of their corpus post-retirement up to the age of 75, instead of the current system of one-time withdrawal, while 40% has to be invested in annuity.
Deepak Mohanty, chairperson, PFRDA said: “We are planning to introduce systematic withdrawal plan from the second half of this year. The amount can be fixed by the subscriber any number of times and it can be withdrawn in lumpsum or in monthly, quarterly, half yearly or annually basis. It is applicable to those in the age group of 60 to75.”
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Mohanty, who was in Chennai for a strategy meeting with bankers on spreading the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) scheme for the unorganised sector, said that the introduction of the new feature might happen during the last quarter of the calendar year, as the software has to be updated accordingly.
He said the assets under management (AUM) of both NPS and APY put together stood at `9.6 trillion and they were expecting it to hit the `10-trillion mark during September.
During the current fiscal, the NPS expects to enrol 1.3 million new subscribers from the non-government sector, against 1 million people in the year-ago period.
Last year, the NPS added 12 million subscribers and this fiscal, it is planning to add 13 million. The APY has a subscriber base of 54 million, he said.
He also said the subscriber base for the NPS will grow from the corporate sector, even if the state governments opt for the old pension scheme for their employees. The strategy for the 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. “Majority of the jobs are in the informal sector. Obviously, if you are in informal sector, you won’t have any statutory access to any of the post-retirement benefits. People have to mend for themselves and in that context, the APY is a good scheme for low-income and underprivileged people,” he said.
Asked about the impact on the subscriber base with several states announcing reverting to the 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.
