In a significant shake-up to the existing Atal Pension Yojana, the Centre’s Modi government is mulling over raising the pension limit under Atal Pension Yojana to up to Rs 10,000 per month from the existing slab of up to Rs 5,000.
A report by news agency PTI quoted Madnesh Kumar Mishra, Joint Secretary, Department of Financial Services as saying that there was a need to increase the value of pension under APY. Speaking on a sideline of a conference, Mishra said, “We have seen the proposal (sent by PFRDA) of increasing the pension value to (up to) Rs 10,000 per month and it is under our active examination.”
Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Chairman Hemant G Contractor said the proposal had been sent to the finance ministry with an aim to increase the subscriber base of APY.
“Currently, we have five slabs of pension from Rs 1,000-5000 per month. There have been a lot of feedback from the market asking for higher pension amounts because many people feel that Rs 5,000 at the age of 60 years, 20-30 years from now, will not be sufficient.
“We have placed this proposal with the government that it should be increased to up to Rs 10,000,” Contractor was quoted by PTI.
The proposals include increasing the current pension limit of Rs 5000/month under APY to Rs 10,000 per month, consider automatic enrollment of citizens in APY and raising the maximum age bar under the scheme up to 50 years, reported Financial Express.
As of now, there are 1.02 crore subscribers to the APY scheme. According to K Mohan Gandhi, general manager, PFRDA, currently the scheme has 60% men and 40% women.