Atal Pension Yojana to Reach One Million Mark Soon
The number of enrollment in Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has seen a boost in the last six months nearing at one million enrollments, but it is nowhere near the target of enrolling 20 million people by the end of the year 2015. The scheme had seen a steady rise in the subscribers in the first three months. However, in the last three months there was a visible lag in the additional numbers of enrollment. One of the main reasons of this lag is that there is no clarity when it comes to the tax treatment of the pension received from this scheme. Also, people have shown concern about the rising inflation, especially in urban areas, and that the real rate of return given by this scheme will not be enough to match the inflation rate.
To boost the make sure that the reach of this scheme is widened, there has been several modifications in the scheme to make it more subscriber friendly. The subscriber now has an option to make monthly as well as quarterly and semi annually contributions to the scheme. The penalty of late contribution has also been modified. Now the subscriber has to only pay one rupee per hundred rupees of every late payment. Apart from that some exit norms and discontinuing contribution provision has also been modified.
The main objective of APY is to ensure that the unorganized sector of the country gets the benefit of social security in our country. The PFRDA is administrating the APY scheme and is already in talks with various banks to promote and popularize this scheme. The PFRDA states that the pension need of the unorganized sector of the country is higher than other sectors.
As of now only about ten lakh people have subscribed for the scheme. Over six lakh subscribers come from the urban areas of the country and around three and half lakh subscriber come from the rural areas of the country. When it comes to the global ranking of pension index, India has the last position. The scheme is aiming to reach wider population of unorganized sector to ensure that they receive a minimum pension per year.
According to PFRDA, banks have to play an important and dynamic role in popularizing the scheme. The banks have their reach at every segment of the country and they can easily push the products to the people by citing different benefits provided by this scheme.
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