Atal Pension Yojana: Govt changes eligibility criteria — check new rules, last date to apply, other details

The eligibility criteria in the Atal Pension Yojana Scheme (APY) which was launched on May 9, 2015 has been changed. According to the new criteria, any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer, shall not be eligible to join APY after October 1, 2022. 

The government has said that the new rule related to Atal Pension Yojana will be effective from October 1, 2022. Before this date all the taxpayers of the country should invest in the Atal Pension Scheme to enjoy the benefits. 

What is Atal Pension Yojana?

Under the scheme,subscribers would receive the guaranteed minimum monthly pension of Rs. 1,000 or Rs. 2,000 or Rs. 3,000 or Rs. 4,000 or Rs. 5,000 at the age of 60 years. Under APY, the monthly pension would be available to the subscriber, and after him to his spouse and after their death, the pension corpus, as accumulated at age 60 of the subscriber, would be returned to the nominee of the subscriber. 

The minimum pension would be guaranteed by the Government, i.e., if the accumulated corpus based on contributions earns a lower than estimated return on investment and is inadequate to provide the minimum guaranteed pension, the Central Government would fund such inadequacy. Alternatively, if the returns on investment are higher, the subscribers would get enhanced pensionary benefits.

In the event of premature death of the subscriber, Government has decided to give an option to the spouse of the subscriber to continue contributing to the APY account of the subscriber, for the remaining vesting period, till the original subscriber would have attained the age of 60 years. 

The spouse of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the same pension amount as that of the subscriber until the death of the spouse. After the death of both the subscriber and the spouse, the nominee of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the pension wealth, as accumulated till age 60 of the subscriber.