ATAL PENSION YOJANA: UPGRADE/DOWNGRADE OF PENSION IS NOW AVAILABLE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR

PENSION FUND REGULATORY AND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

In its endeavor to make the Atal Pension Yojana attractive and to benefit 2.28 Crore subscribers enrolled under the scheme, PFRDA has asked all banks to process upgrade/ downgrade of pension amount requests of APY subscribers throughout the year with effect from 1^st July 2020, however; once in a financial year. This arrangement will enable the APY subscribers to increase/decrease their pension plans as per their changing income levels and capacity to pay APY contributions, which is very important to continue contributions in the scheme till 60 years. Earlier this facility was available only during the month of April of every year.

 Apart from the above, from 1^st of July, 2020 the auto-debit of APY contributions has also started, which was stopped till 30^th June, 2020 due to PFRDA’s circular issued on 11^th April, 2020 for providing relief to the APY subscribers from out-break of Covid-19. As per current arrangements, if all the pending APY contributions due between April-August, 2020 get auto-debited from Savings account of the subscribers, the latest by 30^th September 2020; then no penal-interest would be charged to them.

 Further, in order to enable subscribers to follow social-distancing norms and promote digital utilities PFRDA has also sent one communication to all Banks describing usage and ways to access digital utilities for few functionalities available online for facilitating APY subscribers to access their APY accounts and get various forms without visiting their bank branch. These functionalities include downloading Upgrade/ downgrade from, PRAN Card Printing, View/download of APY e-PRAN with complete subscriber’s details, Transaction Statement, APY Subscriber Information Brochure and Subscriber Details Modification Form.  Subscribers can also lodge their grievances at Central Grievances Management System (CGMS), download of Mobile Application, access to Youtube videos on APY Ki Pathshala. The information on these features is expected to benefit APY subscribers and empower them to carry out APY related activities smoothly.

 The Atal Pension Yojana is launched by the Government of India in May 2015 and is being administered by PFRDA. This scheme is open to all Citizens of India for joining who are in the age group of 18-40 years, through the bank-branches or post offices where they have their Savings Bank accounts. Under the scheme, a subscriber would receive a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs.1000 to Rs.5000 per month after attaining the age of 60 years, depending upon his contributions. After the death of such subscribers, the same pension amount would be paid to the spouse of the subscriber and on the demise of both subscriber and spouse, the accumulated pension wealth as accumulated till age 60 years of the subscriber would be returned to the nominee.

The scheme is currently being distributed through 258 active APY Service Providers consisting of Banks and post-offices as this scheme is only available to those who have a Savings Bank account. PFRDA regularly advises all its APY Service Providers to promote the scheme for its outreach to the ultimate prospective customers. All Public Sector, Private, Regional Rural, Small Finance, Payment, and Co-operative Banks enthusiastically participate in the various promotional campaigns run by PFRDA throughout the year.

 More than 5 lac new subscribers have been enrolled under APY in the first quarter of the FY 2020-21 out of which around 4 lac subscribers joined APY in the month of June 2020. The year on year growth of APY enrolments is as follows: