GUWAHATI, Jan 10 - With a view to promoting and expanding the coverage of National Pension System (NPS) among the State autonomous bodies, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) is organising State-level workshops for such bodies which have not yet implemented NPS.
The basic objective of the workshop is to facilitate the autonomous bodies for seamless on-boarding into NPS by understanding their concerns and feedback, an official release said.
PFRDA convened a workshop on NPS for the State autonomous bodies of the northeastern states in association with the directorates of treasuries of all the NE states here on Monday.
Samir Kumar Sinha, Principal Secretary (Finance), Govt of Assam, chaired the workshop and AG Das, Chief General Manager, PFRDA underscored the need for awareness regarding NPS.
Among all the northeastern states, the Government of Manipur had first notified NPS for its employees in various autonomous bodies of the state vide notification dated December 31, 2004 and it became effective from January 1, 2005. Currently there are more than 140 state autonomous bodies operating in the North East, out of which only 16 entities have adopted NPS with the subscriber base of less than 2,500.
PFRDA also regulates the Govt of India�s flagship scheme Atal Pension Yojana (APY) which is focused on the unorganised sector workers. Under the APY, a guaranteed minimum pension of Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 per month will be given at the age of 60 years depending on the contributions by the subscribers. Any citizen of India whose age is between 18-40 years and having a savings bank account/post office savings bank account can join the APY scheme.
Together, NPS and APY have massive footprints across the country with a subscriber base of more than 192 lakh subscribers and with an asset base of more than Rs 2.20 lakh crore.
Currently, the APY scheme has more than 80 lakh subscribers with an average of 15,000 new subscribers added on a daily basis. The government is on the verge of achieving its vision of one crore subscribers under APY on March 31.