Government sector: Net NPS subscriber addition crashes

The pace of fresh government sector subscriptions under the National Pension System (NPS) has fallen sharply so far in 2020-21, possibly a fallout of the damage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to the PFRDA data, only 41,036 subscribers from the central government sector joined the NPS between April and November. This works out to a monthly average of 5,130, against that of 9,784 in 2019-20. However, in FY19, the monthly average addition of the central government sector subscribers was 5,241.

Similarly, from the state government sector, only 2,06,588 new subscribers joined the NPS in the April-November period. This works out to a monthly average of 25,823, compared with that of 36,045 in the entire FY20.

However, the total number of subscribers in various schemes under the NPS, as of November 2020, stood at 388.62 lakh, recording a 21.35% rise from a year before. At the end of March 2020, NPS had 345.55 lakh subscribers. Subscribers under Atal Pension Yojana (APY) has the largest share, with 249.69 lakh subscribers.

The NPS was introduced from January 1, 2004, for new entrants to central government service (except for armed forces) replacing the old pension system. NPS was also made applicable to new employees of all autonomous bodies of the central government from the same date. After the central government, various state governments also adopted this architecture and implemented NPS with effect from different dates.

In a recent performance audit report on NPS for the year ended March 2018, the comptroller and auditor general of India (CAG) found that even after 15 years of implementation, there was no assurance that all nodal offices and 100% eligible employees were covered under NPS. It recommended putting in place a full-proof system to ensure that all nodal offices and eligible employees are registered under NPS.