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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday( 26th March 2024) said Atal Pension Yojana is based on best practice choice architecture to automatically continue the premium payment unless the subscriber opts out. In a social media post, Ms Sitharaman said this is a deliberate and beneficial feature which is in the best interest of the subscribers. She was responding to Congress leader Jairam Ramesh’s accusation that Atal Pension Yojana is poorly-designed and the amount of return is not very attractive.
The Finance Minister claimed that Mr Ramesh is ignorant of the basic tenets of designing a good pension scheme. She stated that Atal Pension Yojana gives a guaranteed minimum return and Government pays a subsidy to Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, PFRDA to make up for any shortfall in actual returns. Finance Minister added that if higher investment returns are received on the contributions of subscribers of Atal Pension Yojana, higher pension would be paid to the subscribers. She said that currently, the returns are more than 8 percent.