Amid several states demanding refund of the NPS corpus of their respective employees, the Ministry of Finance on Tuesday (December 13) shared the Central and State-wise details of the number of subscribers, amount of contributions and Assets Under Management (AUM) under the National Pension System (NPS).
As per the data shared by the Finance Ministry, there are over 20 lakh Central Government NPS subscribers while more than 50 lakh State Government Employees have subscribed to the scheme. The total AUM under NPS (Central Government) is over Rs 2 lakh crores while the total AUM of state employees is more than Rs 3.5 lakh crore as of 31st October 2022.
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Bhagwat Karad, shared the above numbers in a written reply to a query in the Rajya Sabha. Following is the detailed break-up of Central and state-wise corpus under NPS.
Total AUM of State Government Employees under NPS
Total AUM of Central Government Employees under NPS
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Refund request from States
Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Jharkhand and Rajasthan have decided to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS) and requested the Centre to refund the NPS corpus of their employees.
“The State Governments of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh along with State Government of Jharkhand have sent a proposal to the Central Government/PFRDA to return the accumulated corpus of subscribers under National Pension System (NPS). However, no such proposal has been received from the State Government of Punjab,” Dr Karad said.
PFRDA rejects demand
Meanwhile, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has informed the states that there is no provision under various regulations for the refund of employees’ corpus to the State Government.
“PFRDA has informed the respective State Governments that there is no provision under Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 2013 read along with PFRDA (Exits and Withdrawals under the National Pension System) Regulations, 2015, and other relevant Regulations, as amended from time to time, vide which the funds, which are already deposited both in the form of Government contribution and Employees’ contribution towards NPS, along with accruals, can be refunded and deposited back to the State Government,” Dr Karad said.
