PFRDA is working on such a pension scheme which can have Minimum Assured Return . PFRDA Chairman Deepak Mohanty has told about this.
He said that something will come soon about this. He told that the number of subscribers of Atal Pension Yojana ( APY ) has reached around 5.3 crore. A target of 1.3 crore has been kept for enrollment this year. Last year the enrollment was 1.2 crore. PFRDA is the regulator of the New Pension Scheme ( NPS ). NPS was launched by the government on January 1, 2004. This new scheme of pension is available to all including government and non-govt.
Working on minimum assured return
Mohanty said that the work on minimum assured return is going on. He said, “We have to balance the risk and the return… If someone gives assurance, then he has to pay the cost. For the assured return, the pension fund will have to arrange more capital, because it will increase the risk. We offer such products. We are considering it. We have also made some progress in this direction. We will bring this product and also we have to see that its returns should be attractive.
The return of Atal Pension Scheme is 9 percent.
Atal Pension Yojana has generated 9% return. The government has assured to arrange the funding gap of this scheme. Regarding the committee constituted under the leadership of the Finance Secretary to review the pension system of government employees, he said that it is too early to say anything about it. Mohanty is a member of this committee. This committee will recommend measures to improve pension related benefits of government employees under NPS.
The committee is reviewing the pension scheme
This committee was set up after the demand of the employees to implement the old pension scheme again in place of the new pension scheme (NPS) in many states. Some non-BJP ruled states have announced the re-implementation of the DA-linked old pension scheme. After this, its demand has increased in some other states as well. However, before taking any decision in this regard, the government will have to consider its impact on the budget.
No provision to return NPS Corpus
On the demand of the states to return the NPS corpus, Mohanty said that there is no provision in the law to return the pension amount, as this money belongs to the contributors. The central government had said in March that there is no provision in the PFRDA Act for refund of NPS corpus. Actually this demand has been made on behalf of five non-BJP ruled states. He has said that since he wants to re-implement the old system of pension, then this money should be returned to him.
