1. What is retirement planning and how to ensure an independent life even when one retires from active work life? Retirement planning involves disciplined saving, vigilant investment to build a sufficient retirement corpus and its judicious drawdown in the post-retirement phase. This is achieved by joining a pension/retirement plan at an early stage in one’s life so that when a person retires from active work life, he gets a regular stream of income in the form of pension or annuity for his life. 2. What are the pension plans available in India? National Pension System (NPS) which is administered and regulated by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) created by an Act of Parliament. Besides the NPS, some mutual funds and insurance companies also offer Pension plan or retirement plan, which are not under the jurisdiction of PFRDA. Apart from this the normal retirement plan options include EPFO, Retirement gratuity etc. is offered by employers to their workers and employees. 3. What is National Pension System (NPS)? National Pension System (NPS) is a voluntary, defined contribution retirement savings scheme designed to enable the subscribers to make optimum decisions regarding their future through systematic savings during their working life. NPS seeks to inculcate the habit of saving for retirement amongst the citizens. It is an attempt towards finding a sustainable solution to the problem of providing adequate retirement income to every citizen of India. Under the NPS, individual savings are pooled in to a pension fund which are invested by PFRDA regulated professional fund managers as per the approved investment guidelines in to the diversified portfolios comprising of government bonds, bills, corporate debentures and shares. These contributions would grow and accumulate over the years, depending on the returns earned on the investment made. At the time of normal exit from NPS, the subscribers may use the accumulated pension wealth under the scheme to purchase a life annuity from a PFRDA empanelled life insurance company apart from withdrawing a part of the accumulated pension wealth as lump-sum, if they choose so. 4. What are the advantages in joining NPS? Flexible- NPS offers a range of investment options and choice of Pension Fund Manager (PFMs) for planning the growth of your investments in a reasonable manner and see your money grow. Individuals can switch over from one investment option to another or from one fund manager to another subject, of course, to certain regulatory restrictions. The returns being totally market-related. Simple – Opening an account with NPS provides a Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN), which is a unique number and it remains with the subscriber throughout his lifetime. The scheme is structured into two tiers: Tier-I account: This is the non-withdrawable permanent retirement account into which the accumulations are deposited and invested as per the option of the subscriber. Tier-II account: This is a voluntary withdrawable account which is allowed only when there is an active Tier I account in the name of the subscriber. The withdrawals are permitted from this account as per the needs of the subscriber as and when claimed. Portable- NPS provides seamless portability across jobs and across locations, unlike all current pension plans, including that of the EPFO. It would provide hassle-free arrangement for the individual subscribers. Regulated- NPS is regulated by PFRDA, with transparent investment norms, regular monitoring and performance review of fund managers by NPS Trust.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:56:23 +0000
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