PFRDA targets 10 mn NPS subscribers for FY15 | Business Standard

PFRDA targets 10 mn NPS subscribers for FY15 | Business Standard







Introduced effective January 1,
2004 through an earlier Budget announcement and an executive order,
NPS(originally New Pension Scheme and now New Pension System) is now in its
teens. Beyond forcibly denying a well-established pension scheme for a section
of central government employees who joined service after December 31, 2013 and
employees of various state governments who joined service after adoption of the
NPS by respective states, the scheme has not enthused many outside the captive
clientele for whom it was made compulsory even before legislative measures were
initiated or the issue examined by the central pay commission.
It would be  embarrassing for PFRDA to reveal the share of
88 per cent employees who were not covered by regular pension schemes in 2013,
whose interest NPS was to pursue, in the present corpus of Rs56,000 crore(AUM).
One option to salvage the
credibility of NPS would be to restore the defined-benefit-based pension scheme
for all employees who would have been 
eligible for such pension but for the introduction of NPS and use
National Pension System as an instrument to cover wage-earners and
self-employed people who are not covered by existing regular social security
schemes like pension, provident fund etc. to ensure that the burden of
providing old age care for such people does not entirely become the burden of
the government. The PFRDA target of coverage pegged at 10 mn for FY15 should be
ear-marked exclusively for this category and the target should be progressively
raised from year to year.
M G Warrier, Mumbai
For a more detailed analysis please read my article on National Pension System published in The Global ANALYST, October 2013 accessible at www.theglobalanalyst.co 


 




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