What is the minimum and maximum age at which a subscriber can join the Atal Pension Yojana ?

Correct — B, (b) 18 years and 40 years respectively. The Atal Pension Yojana is open to any citizen of India between eighteen and forty years of age who has a savings bank account or a post office savings account, and the upper limit of forty is the number that carries the whole design. The scheme pays a guaranteed pension from the age of sixty, so a subscriber who joins at forty contributes for twenty years, and twenty years is the minimum contribution period the scheme is built on: the contribution charts run from entry age eighteen down to entry age forty and simply stop there, because a shorter contribution period would not fund the guarantee. That is why the pair in this option holds together and no other pair does — eighteen is the ordinary age of contractual capacity at which a person may operate a savings account and take on the mandate, forty is sixty minus the twenty years of contribution, and sixty is the age at which the pension starts rather than an age at which anyone joins. The pension itself is a guaranteed monthly amount of ₹1,000, ₹2,000, ₹3,000, ₹4,000 or ₹5,000 from sixty, according to the contribution the subscriber chooses and the age at which he began, and the guarantee is the Government of India's: if the accumulated corpus falls short of what the promised pension needs, the shortfall is funded by the Government.

Why the others are wrong

• (a)21 years and 58 years respectively — Fifty-eight is a real pension age in the EPFO's own world — it is the age of superannuation for a pension under the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995 — which is exactly why it is dangerous in this set. It belongs to a different scheme run by a different body. Nothing in the Atal Pension Yojana uses fifty-eight, and the scheme has no entry age of twenty-one either; contractual capacity and a savings account at eighteen are the entry conditions.
• (c)18 years and 50 years respectively — The half-right option, and the one worth slowing down over, because it gets the minimum exactly right and only moves the maximum. Fifty fails on the scheme's arithmetic: a subscriber joining at fifty would contribute for ten years before the pension begins at sixty, half the twenty-year contribution period the guaranteed pension is priced on. When two options share a value in one slot, as (b) and (c) do here, the slot they differ in is the whole question — check that one first.
• (d)21 years and 60 years respectively — This confuses the exit age with the entry age. Sixty is when the Atal Pension Yojana starts paying, not when a subscriber may join; joining at sixty would leave nothing to contribute out of and nothing to fund. Twenty-one is not a threshold in the scheme at all. Reading the two numbers as 'the pension age and something a bit before it' inverts the design, which fixes the entry window first and derives the pension age from it.

The Atal Pension Yojana was announced in the 2015-16 Budget and launched in May 2015 to bring the workers of the unorganised sector into a pension arrangement, taking the place of the earlier Swavalamban scheme. It is administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority through the National Pension System architecture, with banks and post offices as the points of presence. A subscriber between eighteen and forty who holds a savings bank or post office savings account chooses a pension level — ₹1,000, ₹2,000, ₹3,000, ₹4,000 or ₹5,000 a month — and the contribution is auto-debited monthly, quarterly or half-yearly from that account until he turns sixty, when the pension begins. The pension continues to the spouse on the subscriber's death, and on the death of both the subscriber and the spouse the accumulated pension wealth as at the age of sixty is paid to the nominee, so the scheme is a pension with a defined benefit and a return of corpus rather than a simple annuity. In the scheme's first phase the Government of India co-contributed fifty per cent of the subscriber's contribution or ₹1,000 a year, whichever was lower, for five years, for subscribers who enrolled between 1 June 2015 and 31 March 2016 and were neither income-tax payers nor covered by any statutory social security scheme. One eligibility condition has been added since this paper was set: by a notification of the Department of Financial Services dated 10 August 2022, any citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer is not eligible to join the scheme from 1 October 2022, the object being to target the benefit at the underserved. That change narrows who may join; it does not touch the eighteen-to-forty age window this question asks about, which remains the entry rule.

Key facts

• Entry age for the Atal Pension Yojana: eighteen to forty years, for a citizen of India holding a savings bank or post office savings account.
• The pension begins at sixty, so the maximum entry age of forty guarantees a minimum contribution period of twenty years.
• Guaranteed monthly pension of ₹1,000, ₹2,000, ₹3,000, ₹4,000 or ₹5,000, according to the contribution and the age of entry.
• The minimum pension is guaranteed by the Government of India, which funds any shortfall between the accumulated corpus and the promised pension.
• The scheme is administered by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority under the National Pension System architecture, through banks and post offices.
• On the subscriber's death the spouse receives the same pension; on the death of both, the pension wealth accumulated up to age sixty goes to the nominee.
• Government co-contribution of fifty per cent of the subscriber's contribution or ₹1,000 a year, whichever was lower, for five years, was available to eligible subscribers who joined between 1 June 2015 and 31 March 2016.
• By a notification of 10 August 2022, a citizen who is or has been an income-tax payer cannot join the scheme from 1 October 2022; those already enrolled continue.

Common traps

• Importing fifty-eight from the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995. It is a pension age, but a different scheme's.
• Reading sixty as an entry age. Sixty is when the pension starts.
• Missing that two options share the correct minimum of eighteen and differ only in the maximum. The maximum is the whole question.
• Assuming the age window has changed because the eligibility conditions have. The 2022 notification excluded income-tax payers from joining; it did not alter the eighteen-to-forty window.
• Treating the Government co-contribution as a standing feature. It applied to a defined enrolment window in the scheme's first year.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Atal Pension Yojana, the guaranteed minimum monthly pension payable to a subscriber on attaining the age of 60 years ranges between :

  • (a)₹ 500 and ₹ 2,500
  • (b)₹ 1,000 and ₹ 5,000
  • (c)₹ 2,000 and ₹ 10,000
  • (d)₹ 1,500 and ₹ 7,500

  Answer(b) ₹ 1,000 and ₹ 5,000

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Atal Pension Yojana is administered by which one of the following bodies ?

  • (a)Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India
  • (b)Employees' Provident Fund Organisation
  • (c)Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority
  • (d)Securities and Exchange Board of India

  Answer(c) Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority