Ministry/Department : Ministry of Finance
Objective: To address the longevity risks among the workers in unorganised sector and to encourage the workers in unorganised sector to voluntarily save for their retirement
Scheme:
- Atal Pension Yojana (APY) is open to all bank account holders who are not members of any statutory social security scheme
- The APY will be focussed on all citizens in the unorganised sector, who join the National Pension System (NPS) administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and who are not members of any statutory social security scheme.
- Now small finance banks and payment banks can also offer APY (Changed in January 2018)
- Contribution of subscribers would vary based on their age
- Subscribers would receive the fixed pension of Rs. 1K/2K/3K/4K/5K per month, at the age of 60 years, depending on their contributions.
- The Central Government would also co-contribute 50% of the subscriber’s contribution or Rs. 1000 per annum, whichever is lower, to each eligible subscriber account, for a period of 5 years, i.e., from 2015-16 to 2019-20, who join the NPS before 31st December, 2015 and who are not income tax payers
- There is no exit to the scheme before the age of 60. In case of death of subscriber, the spouse of the subscriber shall be entitled for the same amount of pension till his or her death.
- New Changes:
- All accounts opened after August 2018 will have accident insurance limit of Rs 2 lakh, double than earlier Rs 1 lakh limit.
- The overdraft facility of the scheme was also increased from Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000.
- Earlier, people of age 18 to 60 years were entitled to enrol in this scheme. But now it has been relaxed further to 65 years, taking into consideration rise in average age-expectancy.
Factual Information:
- The minimum age of joining APY is 18 years and maximum age is 65 years.
- Minimum period of contribution by the subscriber under APY would be 20 years or more.
- Launched in 2015
- The existing subscribers of Swavalamban Scheme would be automatically migrated to APY, unless they opt out
- Administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
- Aadhar has been made mandatory to get benefits of APY