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The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) might allow partial withdrawal of funds from the National Pension System (NPS) corpus, before maturity.
Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a Confederation of Indian Industry insurance summit, PFRDA Chairman Yogesh Agarwal said, “We have received some representations in cases of emergency medical conditions and we are looking at it.”
Currently, partial withdrawals are not allowed in NPS. NPS is run by the finance ministry, with no contribution from the government and no guaranteed benefits to subscribers.
The Employees’ Pension Scheme is run by the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), a statutory body under the labour ministry.
On the finance ministry proposing EPS beneficiaries be shifted to NPS, Agarwal said this was an inter-ministerial matter and would be resolved soon. He added the two schemes had different structures---EPFO’s scheme had assured returns, unlike NPS. He said last year, NPS had given 12-15 per cent returns.
NPS had about 52,00,000 subscribers, with about 850 companies and a corpus of Rs 35,000 crore, he said, adding the corpus doubled every year.
On increasing foreign direct investment in the pension sector, he said overall, the pension sector needed Rs 200 crore.
