National Pension Scheme
Context:
- According to a recent report, the penetration of NPS services differs across geographies.
- The general opinion is that the adoption of NPS is lower because of a lack of financial knowledge amongst rural masses.
About the scheme:
- National Pension System (NPS) is a voluntary retirement savings scheme laid out to allow the subscribers to make defined contribution towards planned savings thereby securing the future in the form of Pension.
- It is an attempt towards a sustainable solution to the problem of providing adequate retirement income to every citizen of India.
- PFRDA is the nodal agency for implementation and monitoring of NPS.
Who can open a NPS account?
A citizen of India, whether resident or non-resident, subject to the following conditions:
- Applicant should be between 18 – 70 years of age as on the date of submission of his/her application and should comply with KYC norms prescribed.
Benefits of NPS Account
i) Low Cost:-
- NPS is considered to be the world’s lowest cost pension scheme.
- Administrative charges and fund management fee are also lowest.
ii) Simple:-
- All applicant has to do is to open an account with any one of the POPs being run through all Head Posts Offices across India and get a Permanent Retirement Account Number(PRAN).
iii) Flexible:-
- Applicant can choose his/her own investment option and Pension Fund or select Auto choice to get better returns.
iv) Portable:-
- Applicant can operate an account from anywhere in the country and can pay contributions through any of the POP-SPs irrespective of the POP-SP branch with whom the applicant is registered, even if he/she changes his/her city, job etc and also make contribution through eNPS.
- The account can be shifted to any other sector like Government Sector, Corporate Model in case the subscriber gets the employment.
Syllabus: Prelims