National Pension Scheme (NPS) Rules: Mandatory Upload Documents To Receive Timely Pension

As per the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) circular issued recently on April 27, you can now quickly upload documents if you have subscribed to NPS. This quick process will be made effective from 1 April 2023. The pension body stated that uploading the documents would help in receiving timely annuity income payments.

What documents do you have to upload for Quick Distribution of Annuity Income?
In the circular, it was mentioned that one must upload certain withdrawal and know your customer (KYC) documents for processing of exit formality and annuity income

The documents require are as follows:

• NPS withdrawal or exit form.
• Identity and address proof, as given in the withdrawal form
• Bank account account proof, it could be bank statement of last last 6 months to one year
• Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN) card copy. PRAN number a unique number allotted to a person who has opened an account with NPS and it remains with the subscriber throughout his lifetime.

Steps for the processing of NPS withdrawal or exit request
If you have opted for the government NPS scheme or a corporate NPS scheme, you must follow these steps to exit from NPS.

1. Log into the central recordkeeping gency (CRA) system to initiate the online exit request.
2. Once you initiate the request, you will get a pop-up option to either e-Sign/OTP authenticate, or the nodal office/ point of presence (POP) authorization
3. After you initiate the request from the NPS account, details such as your bank information, address, nominee details, etc. are auto-populated in the NPS withdrawal form.
4. Further you can choose the fund allocation percentage for annuity to receive part of the corpus that you want to withdraw, and other annuity relevant details
5. Using the penny drop verification, your bank account will also be verified online.
6. While submitting the exit request, you must upload KYC documents (identity and address proof), PRAN Card/ePRAN copy, and bank proof.
7. All scanned documents must be legible, as in clear to read.
8. You can authorise the request using one of the following two options:
(a) OTP Authentication - Different OTPs will be forwarded to your phone number and email ID
(b)e-Sign - You can e-Sign the request using your Aadhaar Card.
9. To exit from the National Pension System (NPS), you can withdraw from the pension scheme before or after reaching the retirement age of 60. Upon exit, you must utilise 40% of the accumulated amount to purchase an annuity from an Annuity Service Provider (ASP). The remaining amount can be withdrawn as a lump sum if it is less than Rs5 Lakhs.