The number of new subscribers adopting the National Pension System (NPS) among corporate employees declined by 26.1 per cent between January - June 2023 as compared to the same period in the previous year, showed data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Friday. Cumulatively 77,140 new subscribers adopted the NPS under the corporate component this year as compared to 104,447 last year.
Corporate subscribers are majorly voluntary subscribers and are mainly the employees of both the central and state public sector undertakings alongwith the employees from the private sector.
Meanwhile, the number of new NPS subscribers under the central government component increased by 25 per cent to 82,608 from 66,045 in the period under consideration.
Since the centre mandates NPS for all its new employees, experts see subscription figures at the central level as a proxy for employment generation by the public sector.
Similarly, the number of new subscribers under the state government component increased by 7.1 per cent to 234,584 between January - June 2023 from 218,698 in the corresponding period last year. Since a few states like Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Punjab reverted to the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) last year, these figures cant be used as an exact metric for employment generation by the public sector.