Good news for pensioners! Modi government may hike Atal Pension Yojana limit

In what may come as yet another good news, this time for pensioners, the Modi government is considering increasing pension limit under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY). A proposal for the same has been submitted by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and the government is looking into it. The proposal also asks the government to increase the age limit under the scheme. The proposal, under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), is being examined by the government, said Union Minister of Finance Corporate Affairs, Nirmala Sitharaman in a written reply to Parliament.

The Atal Pension Yojana is a National Pension Scheme (NPS) which was passed in the Union Budget of 2015-16 by the then Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The scheme had replaced the previous Swavalamban Yojana which wasn’t accepted well by the people. APY mainly aims at the unorganized sector such as maids, gardeners, delivery boys, etc. 

The APY is based on defined benefit for providing a guaranteed minimum monthly pension of Rs 1,000/Rs 2,000/Rs 3,000/Rs 4,000/Rs 5,000 at the age of 60 years based on the pension amount chosen. The scheme can be availed by account holders between the age of 18 to 40 and offers a minimum guaranteed monthly pension of between Rs 1,000 and Rs 5,000, depending on the customer`s contribution which starts at as low as Rs 42 per month. 

Apart from this, the spouse also gets a monthly pension after the death of the subscriber while the nominee is given the corpus amount of up to Rs 8.5 lakh in the event of the death of the subscriber and the spouse. According to the rules defined under APY, the subscriber receives a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1000-Rs 5000 per month from the age of 60 years. 

This amount depends upon his contribution. The same pension would be paid to the spouse of the subscriber and on the demise of both the subscriber and spouse, the accumulated pension wealth is returned to the nominee.

How to apply for Atal Pension Yojana?

The scheme is provided by all nationalised banks and you can visit any of them to start an account. The forms are also available and can be downloaded from the official website in these languages: English, Hindi, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi, Odia, Tamil, and Telugu. You need to fill the form and submit it to the bank along with a photocopy of your Aadhaar card.