PFRDA in its endeavor to promote NPS among corporates has embarked upon conducting NPS workshops at various locations across the country. In this regard, a Corporate meet was conducted at Mumbai on 18^th January 2017 in association with FICCI, Maharashtra State Council.

2. Shri Hemant G Contractor, Chairman, PFRDA in his key address outlined the role and objectives of PFRDA and informed that in the changing demographic profile of the country, planning for pension has become vital for everyone, more so as unlike other developed countries, the percentage of working population is very high in the unorganized sector and this workforce is not covered by any pension scheme. National Pension System (NPS) provides a platform to every segment of the society for savings for retirement. He also spoke on the salient features of NPS.

Shri Sunil Shanghai, Chairman, FICCI Capital Market Committee and Head of Investment Banking, HSBC India in his welcome address lauded the efforts of PFRDA for organizing such meetings across the country and creating awareness about NPS, which can assist corporates in providing pension to their employees.

Shri A G Das, Chief General Manager, PFRDA requested the participants to utilize this meet for better understanding of NPS and implementing the same in their respective organizations.

3. More than 160 participants attended the workshop. Maharashtra based POPs were also present for the workshop. PFRDA officials gave a detailed presentation on NPS and informed the participants about the features, benefits and the process of joining NPS to the employees as well as to the employer. Presentation on operational aspects of NPS was given by Central Record Keeping Agency (NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Limited). Official of HDFC Pension Management Company Limited spoke on the role of the Pension Funds under NPS architecture. An official of KPMG India made a presentation on Tax benefits under NPS and other financial products.
4. PFRDA officials answered the queries regarding entry into NPS, tax benefits, POPs details, timelines, transfer of superannuation fund to NPS, annuity etc to the participants.
5. The recent developments under NPS-Private Sector (All citizen and Corporate) are listed below:
6. Dispensing of requirement of submission of physical application form in case of subscriber opening account online and e-Signing the document.
7. Introduction of Alternative Investment Fund-a separate class of Asset “A”

iii.        Introduction of two new life cycle funds (LC 75 and LC 25)

1. Option to change the investment choice or asset classes twice in a financial year
2. Under Tier-I account, minimum contribution requirement in a financial year is reduced from Rs 6,000/- to Rs 1,000/-
3. As on 17^th January 2017, more than 5.54 lacs employees of 3014 registered corporates have joined NPS under NPS Corporate Model and the Asset Under Management (AUM) for this segment is more than Rs. 13,500 Crores. More than 3.12 lac subscribers have joined NPS under NPS-All Citizen Model and the AUM of this segment is more than Rs. 2030 crores. As on 17^th January 2017, the overall number of NPS and APY subscribers have crossed 1.42 Crores with Asset Under Management (AUM) of Rs. 1,61,000 Crores.

PFRDA’s endeavor is to significantly scale up these segments during the ongoing months.