Atal Pension Yojana crosses 3 crore subscriber base by March; 79 lakh new additions in FY21

New Delhi: Atal Pension Yojana (APY) subscribers crossed the 3-crore mark by the end of March 2021 with addition of over 79 lakh new subscribers to the scheme in 2020-21, PFRDA said on Thursday.

During the financial year 2020-21, more than 79 lakh new APY subscribers joined Atal Pension Yojana (APY) leading total enrolments to over 3.02 crore as on March 31, 2021, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) said in a release.

Of the total 3.02 crore subscribers under APY, around 70 per cent of the accounts have been opened by public sector banks, while 19 per cent were sourced by regional rural banks.

"Pace of enrolments has been encouraging especially in the second half of 2020-21 as it took less than six months to enrol 50 lakh new APY subscribers to reach 3 crore enrolments from 2.5 crore enrolments," PFRDA said.

With regard to 79.14 lakh new additions during 2020-21, SBI sourced as many as 28 per cent, equivalent to 22.07 lakh subscribers, followed by Canara Bank and Indian Bank, sourcing 5.89 lakh and 5.17 lakh subscribers, respectively.

Among others, Bank of Baroda, Airtel Payment Bank, Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, Indian Overseas Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank, Aryavart Bank and Baroda UP Bank added between 1 and 5 lakh new APY accounts in 2020-21.

PFRDA said Airtel Payment Bank, SBI, Indian Bank, Bank of India, Vidarbh Konkan Gramin Bank, Jharkhand Rajya Gramin Bank, Karnataka Gramin Vikas Bank, and Tripura Gramin Bank performed well.

It added that Uttarbanga Kshetriya Gramin Bank, Asaam Gramin Vikas Bank, Bangiya Gramin Vikas Bank, Aryavart Bank and Tamilnad Mercantile Bank also did well during the year by surpassing the targets allocated to them by the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance.

In terms of state-wise pan-out of the scheme, over 20 lakh APY subscribers were enrolled in 5 states as on March 31, 2021.

Uttar Pradesh is at the top with 45.4 lakh APY enrolments, followed by Bihar with 28.22 lakh, West Bengal with 23.92 lakh, Maharashtra with 23.17 lakh and Tamil Nadu with 22.57 lakh cumulative APY enrolments so far, PFRDA said. Other six states Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Odisha have done APY enrolments between 10 and 20 lakh by the end of March this year.