The Government has not undertaken any comparative study to examine the efficacy of the National Pension System (NPS) (earlier known as the New Pension Scheme) vis-à-vis the odl defined benefit scheme.

However, the NPS has launched based on the need for pension reform felt by the Government of India in the year 2003, to meet obligations related to pensions in a sustainable manner. The NPS for government employees is conceived on sound principles involving regular contributions by the employee and the Government, and prudent investment of the corpus under regulatory supervision.

 The Government has examined the returns on the investment made from the contribution of the employees through the NPS. The returns on annual compounding basis on the Central Government Sector under NPS since its inception i.e., 1.4.2008 for the period ending are as under:

2008-09	2009-10	2010-11	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14
12.02%	12.06%	10.72%	9.41%	9.99%	9.11%

This information was given by the Union Minister of Finance, Shri Arun Jaitley in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

National Pension System reform emphasizes contributory funding and regulated investments with disclosed historical investment returns. The Government did not undertake a comparative study of the National Pension System against the former defined benefit scheme; the NPS was introduced as a pension reform to ensure sustainable pension obligations, structured around regular employee and Government contributions and prudently invested corpus under regulatory supervision. The Government disclosed annual compounded investment returns for the Central Government sector of the NPS since its inception in response to a parliamentary question.