The Government has made a co-contribution amount of Rs 57,078.22 lakh disbursed till February 2021 under Atal Pension Yojana, this was stated by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
Giving more details, the Atal Pension Yojana is a Government of India Scheme launched on 9th May, 2015, and became operational w.e.f. 1st June, 2015. It is open to all citizens of India between 18-40 years of age, having a savings bank account in a bank or post office. The benefits of the scheme will arise to the subscribers on attaining the age of 60 years. Five pension plan slabs are available under the scheme namely, Rs 1000, Rs 2000, Rs 3000, Rs 4000, and Rs 5000 guaranteed by Government of India to the subscriber at the age of 60 years. On death of subscriber, same pension to spouse is guaranteed by Government of India. Return of full pension corpus to nominee in the event of death of both subscriber and the spouse. If the actual returns during the accumulation phase are higher than the assumed returns for minimum guaranteed pension, such excess will be passed to the subscribers.
The Minister further stated that the Central Government co-contributes 50% of the total contribution or Rs. 1000 per annum, whichever is lower, for those subscribers who have joined the scheme during the period 1st June, 2015 to 31st March, 2016, and who are not members of any statutory social security scheme and who are not income tax payers. The State-wise details of the funds disbursed under Government Co-contribution for the period June, 2015 to February, 2021 is enclosed at ANNEXURE A.
The Minister listed out the following measures being taken by the Government to increase the enrolment under APY:
- Changing the mode of payment of contribution by subscriber from only monthly to monthly, quarterly, and half yearly, keeping in consideration the seasonal income earners.
- Subscribers now can upgrade or downgrade the Pension amount at any time during the financial year. This facility can be availed once during the financial year.
- Official mobile app to access APY accounts, as well as Value Added Facilities like E-PRAN and E-SOT to access PRAN and Statement of transactions under the APY account online.
- As a step towards easing the APY subscribers on-boarding, an alternate paper-less mode for on-boarding bank’s existing SB customers under Atal Pension Yojana has been approved by PFRDA, without using net-banking of banks.
- Around 17 banks providing on-boarding facility using Net-Banking are identified. The NSDL has been advised to enable the on-boarding of subscribers using APY App using the net banking URL of these banks.
- APY app is now live on Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance (UMANG) platform.
- Periodic advertisements in print and electronic media in English, Hindi and regional languages, are being made.
- The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) officials conduct regular review meetings with bank officials for reviewing the progress of implementation of APY across the country.
- Grievance Module is available for APY Subscribers
- Capacity building of bank branch officials through various training programmes.
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