Banks finalise plan to increase APY coverage: PFRDA

Banks have finalised an action plan to increase coverage and meet sales target under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), pension regulator PFRDA said today.
The regulator in a statement said that APY service provider-banks have "finalised a cohesive action cum strategy plan to meet stipulated target, ensure penetration of APY to the last mile and to resolve the issues in promoting the scheme to grass root level".
PFRDA conducted strategy meeting on August 4 at Mumbai for public sector banks, private sector banks and regional rural banks having their head offices in western part of India, the statement said.
After a review of the social security scheme in June, the government had asked banks to take steps to increase coverage under the pension scheme as lenders failed in meeting the sales target for the social security scheme in the last financial year.

Public sector banks (PSB) were assigned targets in two phases. The first phase was up to December 31, 2015, while the second phase concluded on March 31, 2016. However, all the large PSBs, including State Bank of India, fell short of the target by a wide margin. Among large banks, SBI was able to enroll 3,33,868 customers in two phases against the target of 49,66,180 people.
The pension regulator further said it had offered capacity building assistance for staffs/BCs of the banks and other promotional material assistance as well.

Till July, more than 1 lakh bankers and post office officials were trained for APY and this exercise of PFRDA is an on-going activity, it said.

The pension scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on May 9, 2015 and became operational from June 1, 2015. APY is available for all citizens of India in the age group of 18-40 years.
Under the APY, the subscribers would receive a minimum guaranteed pension of Rs 1000 per month, Rs 2000 per month, Rs 3000 per month, Rs 4000 per month, Rs 5000 per month, at the age of 60 years, depending on their contributions, which itself would vary on the age of joining the APY.
There are more than 31 lakh subscribers registered in the scheme till date.