Over 65 lakh citizens subscribe to Atal Pension Yojana; total number of subscribers stands at 3.68 cr: FinMin

Over 65 lakh people have subscribed to Atal Pension Yojana during the current financial year so far taking the total number of subscribers to 3.68 crore, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday.

The asset under management increased to Rs 20,000 crore. Meanwhile, 56 per cent of the total subscribers are male while 44 per cent are female.

Atal Pension Yojana (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 1000 to Rs 5000 on attaining 60 years of age, Secondly the amount of pension is guaranteed for lifetime to spouse on death of the subscriber and lastly, in the event of death of both the subscriber and the spouse, entire pension corpus is paid to the nominee.

This flagship social security scheme of the Government of India was launched on May 9, 2015 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an objective of providing old age income security particularly to the citizen in the unorganised sectors.

Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA), which administers 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 & private banks, Regional Rural Banks, Payments Banks, Small Finance Banks, Co-operative banks, Department of Posts and the support extended by the State Level Bankers' Committees."

"In addition to achieving one crore enrolment during this current financial year, going forward we have the task of achieving Pension Saturation in the country and we shall continuously undertake proactive initiatives for achieving it," the PFRDA Chairman added.

(With inputs from ANI)

Published on: Thursday, January 06, 2022, 10:43 AM IST