The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) was launched in May, 2015 and is operational from 1st June, 2015. The APY is primarily focussed on all citizens in the unorganised sector, who are not covered by any pension scheme. All citizens of the country in the eligible category may join the scheme. As on 06.08.2018, the total number of subscribers under APY is 1,09,66,981, out of which, 43,87,993 subscribers are women. The salient features of the Atal Pension Yojana are as under:

• Indian Citizens between the age group of 18 to 40 years eligible to join APY through their savings bank account or post office savings bank account.
• APY is based on defined benefit for providing guaranteed minimum monthly pension of ₹ 1000 or ₹ 2000 or ₹ 3000 or ₹ 4000 or ₹ 5000 at the age of 60 years based on pension amount chosen.
• The Central Government would also co-contribute 50% of the total contribution or ₹ 1000 per annum, whichever is lower, to each eligible subscriber, for a period of 5 years, i.e., from Financial Year 2015-16 to 2019-20, who have joined the APY before 31st March, 2016, and who are not members of any statutory social security scheme and who are not income tax payers.
• In case of premature death of Subscriber (death before 60 years of age), spouse of the subscriber has been given an option to continue contributing to APY account of the subscriber, for the remaining vesting period, till the original subscriber would have attained the age 60 years.

In case of death of both subscriber and spouse, the entire pension corpus would be returned to the nominee. 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 actual returns during the accumulation phase are higher than the assumed returns for minimum guaranteed pension, such excess will be passed on to the subscriber.

With a view to provide flexibility to the subscribers of APY with seasonal or irregular income, besides the monthly mode of payment, quarterly and half yearly mode of payment of contributions have been provided in the Scheme. Further in case of default in payment of contribution, a subscriber may regularize the account by paying the overdue amount along with a minimal charge to obtain the guaranteed pension.

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has informed that the report of PFRDA and CRISIL on ‘Financial security for India’s elderly’ has, inter-alia, mentioned designing of a pension policy exclusively for women where contributions could be from the women’s families. Some tax relief to the savings held in the form of pension has also been mentioned.

This was stated by Shri Shiv Pratap Shukla, Minister of State for Finance in a Written Reply to a question in Lok Sabha.

Guaranteed minimum pension scheme provides defined benefits at retirement with government co contribution and shortfall support. The Atal Pension Yojana provides a defined benefit guaranteed minimum monthly pension from age sixty for eligible unorganised sector citizens joining through savings bank or post office accounts, with a limited government co contribution for qualifying subscribers. If accumulated returns are inadequate to fund the guaranteed pension the Central Government funds the shortfall, while any excess returns accrue to the subscriber. Survivorship, nominee payment, flexible contribution periodicity, and default regularisation mechanisms are provided; PFRDA/CRISIL have proposed a women focused pension policy and tax relief for pension savings.