Modalities for implementation of Atal Pension Yojana (APY)

RBI/2014–15/609 DCBR.BPD (PCB ) Cir. No. 9/12.05.001/2014–15

May 21, 2015

Gov­ern­ment of India, Min­istry of Finance has announced the launch of Atal Pen­sion Yojana (APY) on May 9, 2015. The scheme, is an uni­ver­sal social secu­ri­ty mea­sure spe­cial­ly for the poor and the under-priv­i­leged , which will pro­vide a defined pen­sion, depend­ing on the con­tri­bu­tion, and its peri­od to its sub­scribers. The enrol­ment under the scheme to be intro­duced from June 1, 2015 has to start imme­di­ate­ly. 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). Under the APY, the sub­scribers would receive the fixed min­i­mum pen­sion of Rs. 1000-Rs 5000 per month at the age of 60 years, depend­ing on their con­tri­bu­tions, which itself would be based on the age of join­ing the APY. The min­i­mum age of join­ing APY is 18 years and max­i­mum age is 40 years. There­fore, min­i­mum peri­od of con­tri­bu­tion by any sub­scriber under APY would be 20 years or more. The ben­e­fit of fixed min­i­mum pen­sion would be guar­an­teed by the Government.

2. The scheme will be imple­ment­ed by mem­ber banks in accor­dance with the pre­lim­i­nary rules and terms finalised by the Gov­ern­ment, the copies of which are enclosed, for your infor­ma­tion and nec­es­sary action. Copies of Office Order dat­ed May 7, 2015, Office Order dat­ed May 8, 2015 and Scheme details, Noti­fi­ca­tion dat­ed April 30, 2015, FAQs and APY Sub­scriber Reg­is­tra­tion form and Acknowl­edge­ment of the same are also enclosed as Annex I to V. The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment would also co-con­tribute 50% of the total con­tri­bu­tion or Rs. 1000 per annum, whichev­er is low­er, to each eli­gi­ble sub­scriber account, for a peri­od of 5 years, i.e., from Finan­cial Year 2015–16 to 2019–20, who join the NPS before 31st Decem­ber, 2015 and who are not mem­bers of any statu­to­ry social secu­ri­ty scheme and who are not income tax pay­ers. How­ev­er, the scheme will con­tin­ue after this date but Gov­ern­ment Co-con­tri­bu­tion will not be avail­able. The Gov­ern­ment co-con­tri­bu­tion is payable to eli­gi­ble PRANs by PFRDA after receiv­ing the con­fir­ma­tion from Cen­tral Record Keep­ing Agency at such peri­od­ic­i­ty as may be decid­ed by PFRDA. How­ev­er, the fund­ing sup­port to the scheme would be released only after approval of the Par­lia­ment through Sup­ple­men­tary Demand for Grants for mak­ing nec­es­sary bud­getary provision.

3. As the scheme has to be imple­ment­ed in a sys­tem dri­ven IT mode by auto deb­it of the con­cerned account hold­er, the UCBs in co-ordi­na­tion with PFRDA would also be required to intro­duce the nec­es­sary mod­ule for this pur­pose in their CBS pack­age and in the soft­ware for the hand­held devices of BCs to enable on-line enrol­ment etc. The acknowl­edge­ment slip may be made into an acknowl­edge­ment slip cum reg­is­tra­tion slip for APY.

4. All Pri­ma­ry Urban Coop­er­a­tive Banks not oper­at­ing under direc­tions u/s 35 A of BR Act,1949(AACS) with full CBS imple­men­ta­tion and hav­ing capa­bil­i­ties to build nec­es­sary mod­ules in the CBS/hand held devices soft­ware for banks and BCs may par­tic­i­pate in APY.

5. UCBs may appoint a Nodal Offi­cer for imple­men­ta­tion of the schemes and fur­nish to our Region­al Offices the full details such as name of the bank, address, name of the Nodal Offi­cers with details of their tele­phone num­bers, email address­es etc. for onward trans­mis­sion to Min­istry of Finance, Gov­ern­ment of India.

6. The details of the scheme are avail­able at web­site www.jansuraksha.gov.in / www.financialservices.gov.in.