ATAL PENSION YOJANA

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ATAL PENSION YOJANA

• Atal Pension Yojana (APY), a pension scheme launched by Government of India is focused on the unorganized sector workers.
• Under the APY, minimum guaranteed pension of Rs. 1,000/- or 2,000/- or 3,000/- or 4,000 or 5,000/- per month will start after attaining the age of 60 years depending on the contributions by the subscribers for their chosen pension amount.

Who can open the APY account?

Any Citizen of India can join APY scheme. The following are the eligibility criteria:

• The age of the subscriber should be between 18 - 40 years.
• He / She should have a savings bank account.
• The prospective applicant may provide Aadhaar and mobile number to the bank during registration to facilitate receipt of periodic updates on APY account.
• However, Aadhaar is not mandatory for enrolment.

NRI (Non Resident Indians):

• NRI in the age group 18-40 years of age having a bank account with APY POP (Branch) is eligible to open APY account.
• APY scheme is open to the Indian citizens only. If the NRI becomes non-citizen of India, then the APY account will be closed and the net actual interest earned on his/her contributions (after deducting the account maintenance charges) will be refunded, whereas, the Government co-contribution, and the interest earned on the Government co-contribution, shall not be returned to such subscribers.

Nomination:

It is mandatory to provide nominee details in APY account.

• In APY, default nominee is the spouse of the subscriber and if the subscriber is Unmarried, they can nominate any other person as nominee and they have to provide spouse details after marriage.
• If married, the spouse will be the default nominee. The Aadhaar details of spouse and nominees may be provided.

Procedure for opening APY account:

• Approach the bank branch where individual’s savings bank account is held or open a savings account if the subscriber doesn’t have one and submit APY registration form at the branch.

Retirement benefits:

The subscriber shall receive the following three benefits on attaining the age of 60:

(i) Guaranteed minimum pension amount:

• Each subscriber under APY shall receive a Government of India guaranteed minimum pension of Rs.1000 per month or Rs.2000 per month or Rs.3000 per month or Rs.4000 per month or Rs.5000 per month, after the age of 60 years until death.

(ii) Guaranteed minimum pension amount to the spouse:

• After the subscriber’s demise, the spouse of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the same pension amount as that of the subscriber, until the death of the spouse.

(iii) Return of the pension wealth to the nominee of the subscriber:

• After the demise of both the subscriber and the spouse, the nominee of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the pension wealth, as accumulated till age 60 years of the subscriber.

Income tax benefits:

• Income taxpayers are not eligible for enrolling APY from 01.10.2022 onwards.
• However, Tax benefits available for existing APY subscriber under NPS scheme are same under APY Scheme as per Notification No. 7 /2016, F.No.173/394/2015-ITA-I dated 19th Feb 2016.
• Effective 01.04.2020, the income tax benefits will depend upon whether subscriber chooses old tax system or new tax system.

Govt Co-contribution:

• The co-contribution of the Government of India is available for 5 years, i.e., from the Financial Year 2015-16 to 2019-20 for the subscribers, who join the scheme during the period from 1st June, 2015 to 31st March, 2016 and who are not covered by any Statutory Social Security Scheme and are not income tax payers.
• The Government co-contribution is payable to eligible Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRANs) by the Pension Fund regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) after receiving the confirmation from Central Record Keeping Agency to the effect that the subscriber has paid all the instalments for the year Government co-contribution will be credited in subscriber’s savings bank account/ post office savings bank account 50% of the total contribution subject to a maximum of Rs 1000/- at the end of financial year.

However, some State Governments also make co-contribution to for APY subscribers in their respective states.

How much should subscriber contribute?:

• The contribution amount shall depend on the age of the subscriber at the time of opening of APY account, frequency of contribution and the pension slab chosen.
• The age wise, frequency wise and pension slab wise contribution table is provided as Annexure for reference.

Can subscriber Change Pension & Contribution frequency?

• Yes, the subscriber has the option to change his/her monthly pension amount after he/she joined the scheme. But subscriber can do this only once in a financial year.
• Yes, the subscriber can change the mode (monthly/ quarterly/half yearly) of auto debit facility once in a financial year.
• Subscribers’ contribution amount will change according to the monthly pension opted by the subscriber.

How much retirement wealth will subscriber Nominees get?

• The same amount of monthly pension as the subscriber, is payable to spouse (default nominee) upon death of subscriber.
• Nominee will be eligible for return of pension wealth accumulated till age 60 years of the subscriber, upon death of both the subscriber and spouse.
• The wealth details are given below and it depends upon the chosen monthly pension.

a) Rs.1,70,000/- (for monthly pension of Rs.1000/-)

b) Rs.3,40,000/- (for monthly pension of Rs.2000/-)

c) Rs.5,10,000/- (for monthly pension of Rs.3000/-)

d) Rs.6,80,000/- (for monthly pension of Rs.4000/-)

e) Rs.8,50,000/- (for monthly pension of Rs.5000/-)

Note: The retirement wealth is pre-defined when subscriber joins the scheme itself.

Delayed and discontinue contributions:

• APY contributions will be collected through auto-debit of their savings bank account/ post office savings bank account on any date of the particular month, in case of monthly contributions or any day of the first month of the quarter, in case of quarterly contributions or any day of the first month of the half year, in case of half-yearly contributions.
• Subscriber will be charged overdue interest for the delayed period in case the APY contribution gets delayed beyond the due date. Banks are required to collect Rs. 1 per month for contribution of every Rs. 100, or part thereof, for each delayed monthly contribution.
• The overdue interest amount collected will remain as part of the pension corpus of the subscriber. More than one monthly / quarterly / half yearly contribution can be recovered subject to availability of the funds.
• APY account in case of continuous default, deduction would continue to be made in the subscriber’s APY account for account maintenance charges and other related charges on a periodic basis till it becomes zero.

Who regulates APY?

APY is regulated by PFRDA (Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority) through NPS (National Pension System) architecture.

Where does Government invest subscriber contributions?

• The contributions under APY are invested as per the investment guidelines prescribed by PFRDA.
• The contributions thus collected are invested and the funds are managed by namely SBI Pension Fund Pvt. Ltd, LIC Pension Fund Ltd, UTI Retirement Solution Ltd.

What one will get in case of death before 60 years of age?

Option 1:

• In case of death of the subscriber before 60 years, option will be available to the spouse of the subscriber to continue contribution in the APY account of the subscriber, which can be maintained in the spouse’s name, for the remaining vesting period, till the original subscriber would have attained the age of 60 years.
• The spouse of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the same pension amount as the subscriber until death of the spouse. Such APY account and pension amount would be in addition to even if the spouse has his/her APY account and pension amount in own name.

Option 2:

• The entire accumulated corpus till date under APY will be returned to the spouse / nominee.

Account statements:

• The periodical information to the subscribers regarding activation of PRAN, balance in the account, contribution credits etc. will be intimated to APY subscribers by way of SMS alerts on the registered mobile number or can be accessed through mobile/APY app launched by NSDL.
• The subscriber will also be receiving physical Statement of Account once a financial year at their registered address.

Account transfer:

• Upon Subscriber’s request APY account can be transferred from (i) one branch to another within in the same bank or (ii) one branch of a bank to a branch of another bank.
• However subscribers need not transfer APY accounts from one branch to another Branch of Bank, if they continue in the same Bank as the contributions will be debited through auto-debit facility only.

Premature closures:

• Premature closure, i.e., Voluntary Exit under APY before 60 years of age is permitted.
• The subscriber shall only be refunded the contributions made by her/him to APY along with the net actual accrued income earned on his contributions (after deducting the account maintenance charges).
• However, in case of subscribers who joined the scheme before 31st March 2016 and received Government Co-Contribution, if they opted for voluntary exit before 60 years, they will not receive the Government co-contribution and the accrued income earned on the same.

The subscribers may visit the following link for more details of APY scheme:

https://www.npscra.nsdl.co.in/scheme-details.php