Every bull market produces its heroes. The trader who caught a multibagger. The neighbor whose smallcap tripled. Their stories travel fast because they are loud and exciting. But this one is not any of those. This is the kind of story that rarely sees the light of the day. The kind nobody makes a reel about. This is about a husband and father who has never directly invested in stocks and has no mutual fund folio. He cannot tell you where the Nifty closed yesterday, and he does not care.
Naresh Bhardwaj, 45, holds a Master’s in English, not an MBA in finance. He owns no stocks, no mutual funds and not even a fixed deposit. He never did. For two decades he has put money into just two government-backed schemes, Public Provident Fund (PPF) and National Pension System (NPS).
In times of cryptos and high-risk derivatives, Naresh, who spoke to Financial Express Digital exclusively, is now completely ready to retire in 2031 at the age of 50 with a corpus of over Rs 3 crore and a pension of around Rs 1 lakh every month. Yes, and he did this without doing anything fancy or falling for the rampant scams running on social media.
His entire toolkit consists of two schemes your parents probably told you about: PPF and NPS.
The ‘Intentional Ignorance’ Wealth Principle
Naresh started his PPF account in March 2006, when the Sensex was near 10,000. Since then, India has lived through the 2008 crash, the Covid collapse of 2020 and the frenzied rallies in between. Through all of it, Naresh did exactly one thing. He kept depositing.
“My objective is to build a sufficient retirement corpus through disciplined investing rather than chasing multiple investment avenues,” he says. It sounds boring. That is the point.
When the market crashed in 2008 and again in March 2020, he did nothing. When it boomed, he did nothing. His deposits went out on schedule either way. That refusal to react, in both directions, is the real spine of his story.
Why Boring Habits Beat Dalal Street Math
Naresh did not learn money from a textbook. He learnt it at home, in a typical middle-class family where nobody spoke about investing but everybody lived within their means. “We were definitely taught the importance of saving and avoiding unnecessary expenses,” he recalls. As a boy, he saved most of his pocket money instead of spending it. Those habits became the foundation of everything that followed.
His education pointed nowhere near finance. A Masters in English, a PG Diploma in Publishing, a career in education publishing. When he entered the job market, he could not make sense of complicated investment products. So, he simply refused to buy what he did not understand, a very Warren Buffett thing to do in all honesty. “In investing, simple things are better,” he says. “One should never chase products that are complex and difficult to understand.”
He did try market-linked products briefly in his early working years. They did not sit well with him, so he walked away for good. “Maybe my returns could have been higher, but I was happy with peace of mind,” he says. No bitterness in the admission, only clarity.
He deliberately stayed away from mutual funds, direct stocks and even fixed deposits. His plan rests on two legs. PPF for the safe, tax-free base. NPS for the growth engine. That’s it.
The 2-Engine Portfolio Blueprint (2006–2031)
| Detail | PPF | NPS |
| Started | March 2006 | June 2009 |
| Annual contribution | Rs 1.5 lakh (current maximum limit) | Rs 2 lakh |
| Corpus today (as shared by Naresh) | Around Rs 80 lakh | Around Rs 1.1 crore |
| Target by 2031 | Over Rs 1 crore* | Around Rs 2.15 crore |
*Projections based on Naresh’s assumption that the current return trend continues
The 10.14% ‘Hidden’ PPF Return
Naresh treats his PPF like a utility bill. “I treated investing like paying an important monthly bill and never thought of it as an extra expense,” he says. His rule for twenty years has been the same. “I made sure I will invest first and spend the remaining money later.” The deposit gets paid every
year, no matter what.
Today he deposits Rs 1.5 lakh annually, the maximum tax rules allow. When he opened the account in 2006, that ceiling was just Rs 70,000. The government raised it to Rs 1 lakh in December 2011 and then to Rs 1.5 lakh from April 2014. Each time the limit went up, so did his deposit.
The PPF’s original 15-year tenure ended in 2021. Most people withdraw at that point. Naresh extended the account twice, taking it to 2031 and a full 25 years of quiet compounding.
The current PPF rate is 7.1%, unchanged for the July to September 2026 quarter. Modest next to equity returns, but it hides two powerful features. The interest is completely tax-free, so 7.1% is worth over 10% pre-tax for someone in the 30% bracket. And the corpus is backed by the Government of India. Low credit risk or market panic to sit through.
Long-time savers will remember that PPF once paid more. The rate stood at 8% or higher for most of Naresh’s early investing years before sliding to the current 7.1%. His oldest deposits, made at those better rates, have also compounded the longest. That is a quiet advantage of starting early that no calculator fully captures.
Profiting From the Section 80C Loophole
Naresh files his taxes under the old regime. His Rs 1.5 lakh PPF deposit fills his entire Section 80C limit, saving him about Rs 45,000 in tax every year at the 30% slab. Over the full 25-year journey, he estimates his cumulative tax savings at nearly Rs 10 lakh.
His argument: that yearly tax saving is real cash in his pocket. Counting it, the effective return on his out-of-pocket PPF investment works out to roughly 10%, though the sticker rate is 7.1%. Few investors do this simple maths.
The Government-Run Growth Engine
The NPS was thrown open to all Indian citizens in May 2009. Naresh signed up within weeks and has put in Rs 2 lakh every year since. Seventeen years on, his NPS corpus stands at around Rs 1.1 crore against a total contribution of Rs 34 lakh.
His average annual return so far is around 12%, and here lies the honest twist in his story. Naresh never bought a stock or a mutual fund. But his NPS money did. The NPS invests across equity, corporate bonds and government securities, and its equity schemes have historically been the growth driver. In other words, Naresh got the benefit of India’s equity boom without ever opening a trading app. The system did the investing. He just did the depositing.
How does a government pension scheme earn 12%? The answer is – Structure. NPS allows up to 75% of contributions in equity, run by regulated pension fund managers at some of the lowest fund costs in the world. High equity exposure, low cost and forced discipline did for Naresh what most retail portfolios fail to do for their owners.
One more point worth knowing is that NPS offers an extra deduction of up to Rs 50,000 under Section 80CCD(1B), over and above the Rs 1.5 lakh limit of Section 80C. Anyone building a similar plan should keep that lever in mind.
The 50-Year-Old Exit Strategy (And Its 80% Catch)
Early retirement was never the original plan. The idea took shape only a few years ago, when Naresh looked at his growing corpus and realised something quietly radical. “If I save regularly, there is no need to work till 60 just because of money,” he says. He owns his house, carries no debt of any kind, and wants the one thing no corpus can buy later: time with his wife and child while it still matters.
Naresh turns 50 in 2031, a full decade before the standard NPS exit age of 60. So, he plans to use the premature exit route. The rules here are strict. On early exit, only 20% of the corpus can be taken as a lump sum. The remaining 80% must be used to buy an annuity, which pays a pension for life.
Here is how his 2031 plan stacks up, based on his own projections of a 12% annual return on NPS till retirement. Mind you, these are projections based on his assumption that the current return trend continues:
| Component | Amount |
| Expected NPS corpus | Around Rs 2.15 crore* |
| Lump sum withdrawal (20%) | Around Rs 43 lakh |
| Annuity purchase (80%) | Around Rs 1.72 crore |
| Expected pension (at ~7% annuity rate) | Around Rs 1 lakh per month |
| Expected PPF corpus | Over Rs 1 crore |
| Total retirement kitty | Over Rs 3 crore |
*Actual NPS Pension depends on the annuity rates in 2031
The numbers hold together. An annuity of Rs 1.72 crore at around 7% produces roughly Rs 12 lakh a year, or Rs 1 lakh a month. Add the Rs 43 lakh lump sum and a PPF account crossing Rs 1 crore, and Naresh enters his fifties with a cushion most private-sector employees only dream about.
However, there are two honest caveats. The annuity pension is taxable at slab rates, so Rs 1 lakh a month is a pre-tax figure. And the Rs 2.15 crore projection assumes his 12% average holds for five more years, which no market-linked product can guarantee. Naresh accepts this. His sovereign-backed PPF leg exists precisely to absorb that risk.
Many planners would question locking 80% of a corpus into an annuity. Naresh is not conflicted. His home is paid for, he has no EMIs, and his only major expense is his child’s school fees. “A big lump sum can get spent quickly, but a monthly pension gives me peace of mind,” he says. The pension is not a compromise forced by NPS rules. It is the point.
The Rs 16 Lakh Crore Proof It Works
Naresh’s story is personal, but the machinery behind it is national. The combined assets under management of NPS and the Atal Pension Yojana crossed Rs 16 lakh crore in late 2025, with the subscriber base going past 9 crore. To put that speed in context, the assets under management (AUM) doubled from Rs 5 lakh crore to Rs 10 lakh crore in just under three years, hitting that mark in August 2023.
Returns have backed the growth. Equity schemes within NPS have delivered roughly 13% to 15.7% over the last five years, while blended NPS portfolios have typically earned between 9% and 12% a year depending on how the money is split between equity and debt. Naresh’s 12% sits comfortably inside that band. He is not an outlier. He just stayed in the system long enough for the averages to work.
The PPF side is duller by design, with the rate held at 7.1% for 17 straight quarters. Dull, predictable and tax-free. Exactly what the base of a retirement plan should be.
The Seccret Rs 2 Crore ‘Education Vault’
Just when the story seemed complete, Naresh mentioned his EPF, almost as an afterthought. Like every salaried employee, he has contributed to the Employees’s Provident Fund (EPF) throughout his career. By his estimate, that corpus could reach around Rs 2 crore by 2031. And he refuses to count a single rupee of it in his retirement plan.
That money has one job: his child’s higher education. “Higher education is becoming very expensive every year. I don’t want my child to compromise on studies because of money,” he says. Whether the child studies in India or abroad, the bucket is ready. No education loan needed.
This is textbook mental accounting by a man who never read the textbook. One bucket for retirement income, one for safety, one for his child’s future. “This way, I know what each corpus is meant for, and I won’t have to disturb my retirement savings later,” he explains. It also means the family’s real cushion in 2031 is closer to Rs 5 crore. “This retirement corpus is not only for me. It is for my wife and children too,” Naresh says confidently.
The Execution Plan For Early Retirement Seekers
It is tempting to argue about the method. A good equity fund over 20 years may well have produced more than Rs 3 crore. Naresh knows it. But that argument misses what actually made him wealthy.
It was not the products. It was the discipline. He picked instruments he could never panic-sell. PPF locks money away. NPS does not allow easy exits before retirement. By choosing schemes that removed the option to act on fear, Naresh protected his corpus from its biggest enemy: himself. No SIP was ever paused. No units were redeemed in a crash. For 20 years, the plan just ran on what we can call auto pilot.
The entry barriers are low. A PPF account opens at any bank or post office and stays alive on Rs 500 a year. NPS is open to every citizen between 18 to 75 (up to 85) per PFRDA’s new rules. Nobody needs Naresh’s salary to copy his system. All they need is the same level of discipline and patience.
There is a lesson in that for every investor scrolling through stock tips tonight. The market rewards patience more reliably than it rewards brilliance. Naresh Bhardwaj was never brilliant with money. He was patient with it. In 2031, patience will pay him Rs 1 lakh a month, every month, for the rest of his life. Not to forget the ₹3 crore net worth fortifying his family’s future.
Disclaimer: This article is based on the personal financial journey, disclosures and projections shared by the individual featured in the story. Future corpus estimates, pension calculations and retirement projections are based on the assumptions provided by the individual, including expected investment returns, prevailing tax laws and current NPS/PPF rules, all of which are subject to change. Pension amounts will depend on the final corpus, annuity rates available at the time of retirement and applicable tax rules. The PPF interest rate is notified by the government every quarter and may change over time.
This article is intended solely for informational purposes and should not be construed as investment, tax or financial planning advice, or as an endorsement of any investment strategy. Readers should assess their own financial goals, risk appetite and consult a qualified financial or tax adviser before making investment or retirement planning decisions.
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