PFRDA's e-learning programme for 0.5 mn people to promote NPS

In all, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) aims to impart training to as many as 497,185 officers and stakeholders.

Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has said it plans to introduce e-learning programme for training nearly 0.5 million officers and other stakeholders to increase the reach of the government's flagship National Pension System.

The initiative for capacity building of intermediaries engaged in social security schemes like NPS and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) through e-learning is crucial because the scope for a physical presence for training is "very limited", it said.

"...hence it is imperative to leverage technology in such a way that learning and knowledge exchange becomes a normal engagement without external interventions," PFRDA said.

"This is the objective of exploring the option of e-learning through a dedicated Learning Management System (LMS)," it said while inviting expression of interest for installation, commissioning and maintenance of LMS for imparting the training.

As per the document, the successful bidder will be expected to provide timely and effective online training on NPS or any other scheme under NPS/APY to employees of Points of Presence (POPs), corporates, nodal officers of central and state governments.

In all, PFRDA aims to impart training to as many as 497,185 officers and stakeholders.

The proposed LMS solution would be implemented based on the managed cloud-based hosting model over a dedicated instance, the document said.

NPS earlier known as New Pension Scheme (NPS) was launched in January, 2004 and in the initial phase covered the new entrants to the central government services (excluding Armed Forces) as well as state government and central autonomous bodies. NPS was extended to all citizens of India in May, 2009.

There were 1.1 crore subscribers of NPS with asset under management totalling about Rs 2 lakh crore at September end, as per the website of NPS Trust.

Last week, the PFRDA had increased fees under NPS for POPs with an aim to increase coverage of the social security scheme.