Income tax payers won’t be eligible to join Atal Pension Yojana from October

An amendment has been made under the Atal Pension Yojana scheme which was originally notified on October 16, 2015.

“Provided that from 1st October 2022, any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer, shall not be eligible to join Atal Pension Yojana,” the gazette notification said.

The gazette notification explained that the expression “income-tax payer” shall mean a person who is liable to pay income tax in accordance with the Income Tax Act, 1961, as amended from time to time.

“In case a subscriber, who joined on or after 1st October 2022, is subsequently found to have been an income-tax payer on or before the date of application, the APY account shall be closed and the accumulated pension wealth till date would be given to the subscriber,” it added.

What is Atal Pension Yojana?

It is a voluntary, periodic contribution-based pension scheme, under which the subscriber would receive the pension after attaining the age of 60 years.

Each subscriber under the scheme shall receive a central government guaranteed minimum pension of Rs 1,000 per month or Rs 2,000 per month or Rs 3,000 per month or Rs 4000 per month or Rs 5,000 per month, after the age of 60 years until death, depending on their individual contributions chosen.

Upon the death of the subscriber, the same pension to the spouse as the subscriber is guaranteed by the government of India, until the death of the spouse.

After the demise of both the subscriber and the spouse, the nominee of the subscriber shall be entitled to receive the pension wealth, as accumulated till age 60 of the subscriber.

As per the latest data available with Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, as many as 4,31,86,423 subscribers have been enrolled under the scheme.