Five years since launch, Atal Pension scheme garners over 2.2 cr subscribers

New Delhi: Government’s flagship pension scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has garnered over 2.2 crore subscribers since its launch five years ago, the PFRDA on Monday said.

The scheme, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 9, 2015, primarily targets those working in the unorganised sector.

“The journey of APY over these five years has been phenomenal and as on 9th May 2020, the total enrolment under the scheme stood at 2,23,54,028,” said the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority of India (PFRDA).

During the first two years, almost 50 lakh subscribers were enrolled which doubled to 100 lakh in the third year and the milestone of 1.50 crore was achieved in the 4thyear, it said.

In the last financial year, almost 70 lakh subscribers were enrolled under the scheme, according to the PFRDA.

The PFRDA is the nodal agency that administers the pension scheme alongside the National Pension System (NPS) that mainly caters to those employed with the government and the organised sector.

To deliver old-age income security particularly to the workers in the unorganised sector and the government providing a guarantee of minimum pension after 60 years of age, the APY is an unequivocal relevant scheme for addressing the challenges of rapidly increasing ageing population of India, the PFRDA said.

It said the scheme has been implemented comprehensively across the country covering all states and union territories with male to female subscription ratio of 57:43, it said.

“This feat of bringing in the most vulnerable sections of the society under the coverage of pension was possible only with the untiring efforts of public and private banks, regional rural banks, payments banks, small finance banks, the Department of Posts and the support extended by the state level Bankers’ committees,” saidSupratim Bandyopadhyay, chairman, PFRDA.

The APY can be subscribed by any Indian citizen in the age group of 18-40 years having a bank account.

The scheme offers three distinctive benefits. It gives a minimum guaranteed pension ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 on attaining 60 years of age.

Secondly, the PFRDA said the amount of pension is guaranteed for a lifetime to spouse on the death of the subscriber and lastly, in the event of the death of both the subscriber and the spouse, entire pension corpus is paid to the nominee.

“Going forward, we have a humongous task of increasing the pension coverage as only 5 per cent of the eligible population has been covered under APY till date and recognising the social importance of this scheme, we continuously undertake proactive initiatives for achieving exponential growth and addressing unexpected scenarios…,” Bandyopadhyay said.