The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) announced on Thursday that it has reached a record 424 lakh subscribers under the National Pension System (NPS) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) at the end of the Financial Year 2020-21. The total Assets Under Management (AUM) of NPS is Rs 5,78,025.40 crore.

The total pension assets under management have shown a year on year growth of 38 per cent. As of March 2021, more than 11 lakh corporate employees and 16.47 lakh non-government subscribers have enrolled in NPS voluntarily.

The pandemic has not impacted the joining of subscribers. A big reason may be that citizens have started realizing the uncertainty of life and the need for financial security and retirement planning, a statement by PFRDA said.

Supratim Bandyopadhyay, Chairman, PFRDA said: “Although last year was pretty challenging because of Covid-19 pandemic but we are glad that we could achieve 24 per cent growth in non-government subscribers base and overall AUM too grew by 38 per cent. The scheme returns of nearly 10 per cent generated by Pension Funds were praiseworthy. In total, 6 lakh new non-government subscribers and 1100 new corporates joined NPS scheme this year, and look forward of adding another 1 million new subscribers during the current fiscal.”

PFRDA, a statutory authority aims to regulate, promote and ensure orderly growth of the NPS.