PFRDA mulling training of nodal officers to popularise NPS

Pension fund regulator PFRDA is planning a nation-wide training programme for all government and non-government nodal offices primarily to increase the awareness and expand the reach of National Pension System across India.
Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) Chairman Hemant Contractor said India has the highest percentage of informal workforce in the world, which is largely uncovered by any pension scheme.
Speaking at the Point Of Presence (POP) Conference on National Pension System, he stressed on the need to expand the coverage of pension sector across the informal sector in the country which occupies almost 90 per cent of the workforce.

Contractor said 10 per cent of the senior citizen population in the world resides in India and this number would increase from current 100 million to 300 million by 2050 and "hence the sense of urgency to expand the coverage to meet the challenge of exponentially increasing fiscal pension liability".
NPS has the advantage of market commensurate returns, flexible options, transparency and low cost, he said, adding that effort was required to meet the challenges facing the unorganised sector including low awareness, low income levels and the lack of long-term vision to save for the future.
Whole Time Member of PFRDA Badri S Bhandari said PFRDA was exploring the development of NPS module linked with core banking solutions of the Banks in line with the Atal Pension Yojna module.

The conference saw an active participation of all the major public and private sector banks and the non-bank Point Of Presence (POPs), a Finance Ministry statement said.
Currently, the unorganised (all citizen segment) and the corporate sector comprises of only 5.6 per cent of the subscribers and 9 per cent of the AUM under NPS. Further, only 7,500 out of 55,600 POP branches (13 per cent) are active in sourcing NPS accounts.
NPS has more than 1.20 crore subscribers with total Asset Under Management (AUM) of more than Rs 1.20 lakh crore.