The government’s flagship social security scheme, Atal Pension Yojana (APY), has achieved a milestone of 2.23 subscribers as it completes five years of its implementation.
Launched on May 9, 2015, by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an objective of delivering old age income security, particularly to the workers in the unorganized sector, the scheme still remains relevant for addressing the challenges of the rapidly increasing aging population of India.
Under the scheme, the government provides the guarantee of minimum pension after 60 years of age.
In its sixth year, the scheme has now been implemented comprehensively across the country covering all the states and Union Territories with male to a female subscription ratio of 57:43.
The journey of APY over these five years has been phenomenal and as on May 9, 2020, the total enrolment under the scheme stood at 2,23,54,028.
During the first two years of its launch, almost 50 lakh subscribers were enrolled, which doubled to 100 lakh in the third year while the milestone of 1.50 crore was achieved in the fourth year.
In the last financial year, almost 70 lakhs subscribers were enrolled under the scheme.
Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which administers the Atal Pension Yojana, said: “This feat of bringing in the most vulnerable sections of the society under the coverage of pension was possible only with the untiring efforts of public and private banks, regional rural banks, payments banks, small finance banks, department of posts and the support extended by the state-level bankers’ committees.”
APY can be subscribed by any Indian citizen in the age group of 18-40 years having a bank account and its uniqueness is attributable to three distinctive benefits. First, it provides a minimum guaranteed pension ranging from Rs 1,000 to Rs 5,000 on attaining 60 years of age. Secondly, the amount of pension is guaranteed for a lifetime to the spouse on the death of the subscriber. Finally, in the event of the death of both the subscriber and the spouse, the entire pension corpus is paid to the nominee.
“Going forward, we have a humongous task of increasing the pension coverage as only 5 percent of the eligible population has been covered under APY till date. Recognizing the social importance of this scheme, we continuously undertake proactive initiatives for achieving exponential growth and addressing unexpected scenarios as and when they arise,” Bandyopadhyay said.
