Here’re The Steps Being Taken By The Government To Raise APY Enrollment

The Atal Pension Yojana is a Government of India scheme that was initiated on May 9, 2015, and started operating on June 1, 2015. It is extended to all Indian residents aged 18 to 40 who have a bank or post office savings account. When the subscribers reach the age of 60, they will be eligible for the scheme's privileges. The scheme offers five pension plan slabs: Rs 1000, Rs 2000, Rs 3000, Rs 4000, and Rs 5000, all of which are backed by the government of India at the age of 60. The Government of India guarantees the same pension to the subscriber's spouse in the event of his or her death. In the instance that both the subscriber and the spouse die, the whole pension corpus is provided to the nominee. If total returns during the accumulation phase exceed the estimated returns for the minimum assured pension, the difference will be handed to the subscribers. Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs, asserted in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha yesterday that the government has made a co-contribution amount of Rs 57,078.22 lakh disbursed till February 2021 under the Atal Pension Yojana. According to the Minister, the Central Government co-contributes 50% of the overall contribution or Rs. 1000 per year, whichever is lower, for subscribers who joined the scheme between June 1, 2015 and March 31, 2016, and who are not members of any statutory social security scheme or income taxpayers. The Minister outlined the following steps that the government is taking to improve APY enrollment:

• Altering the payment method of the subscriber's contribution from monthly to monthly, quarterly, and half-yearly, taking into account periodic income earners.
• Subscribers can also change the amount of their pension at any time during the fiscal year. This service is available only once per fiscal year.
• Official mobile app for APY customers, as well as Value Added Facilities like E-PRAN and E-SOT for online access to PRAN and Statement of Transactions for APY accounts.
• PFRDA has accepted an alternative paperless way for onboarding the bank's existing SB customers under Atal Pension Yojana, without using banks' net-banking, as a measure towards making APY subscribers onboarding easier.
• Around 17 banks have been listed as offering Net-Banking onboarding services. The NSDL has been told to allow customers to sign up for the APY App using these banks' net banking portals.
• The APY app is now also officially available on the UMANG platform (Unified Mobile Application for New-age Governance).
• Advertisements in English, Hindi, and regional languages are published on a regular basis in print and electronic media.
• Officials from the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) will interact with bank executives on a regular basis to assess the pace of the APY implementation across the nation.
• APY Subscribers have now access to the Grievance Module.
• Various training programmes aimed at improving the capacity of bank branch representatives.