The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) August 26, 2021 has issued a circular to increase the entry age up to 70 years under National Pension system (NPS), after receiving requests received from the existing Subscribers to remain invested under NPS beyond 60 years or beyond their superannuation, and the desire from citizens above 65 years to open NPS, it has been decided to increase the entry age of NPS in the interest of Subscribers and benefit them with the opportunity of creating a long term sustainable pension wealth.
The existing age of entry which is 18-65 years has been revised to 18-70 years.
Any Indian Citizen, resident or non-resident and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) between the age of 65-70 years can join NPS and continue or defer their NPS Account up to the age of 75 years. Those Subscribers who have closed their NPS Accounts are permitted to open a new NPS Account as per increased age eligibility norms.
• Exit and Withdrawal from the scheme:
a. Normal Exit shall be after 3 years. The subscriber will be required to utilize at least 40% of the corpus for purchase of annuity and the remaining amount can be withdrawn as lump sum. However, if the corpus is equal to or less than ₹5.00 lakh, the Subscriber may opt to withdraw the entire accumulated pension wealth in lump sum.
b. Exit before completion of 3 years shall be treated as Premature Exit. Under pre-mature exit, the Subscriber is required to utilize at least 80% of the corpus for purchase of annuity and the remaining can be withdrawn in lump sum. However, if the corpus is equal to or less than ₹2.5 lakh, the subscriber may opt to withdraw the entire accumulated pension wealth in lump sum.
c. In case of unfortunate death of the subscriber, the entire corpus will be paid to the nominee of the subscriber as lump sum.
The Investment and Exit features are provided at the Annexure (Given in the link) for ready reference.
[Circular no.: PFRDA/2021/36/SUP-CRA/14]
