Pension regulator PFRDA has urged all government nodal officers of Central and State governments besides autonomous bodies to adopt ‘e-NPS government’ method for onboarding new employees as this allows them to open NPS Account with ease and shift to a paperless mode.
Adopting ‘e-NPS Government’ method for on-boarding new employees is necessary to align with the goal of central government’s Digital India program to transform India into a digitally empowered society wherein physical submission of documents and certificates are not required, PFRDA said in a circular.
Till date, nearly 9,000 accounts have been opened across various Accounting formations of the Central Government and State Governments through the e-NPS mechanism.
Currently, e-NPS Government is largely used by Central Autonomous Bodies (CAB) followed by Civil and Defence Ministries.
Higher efficiency
The major benefits of ‘e-NPS Government‘ are faster account opening, higher efficiency and brings operational finesse to the nodal offices due to the paperless process and optimizing their time.
Since e NPS-Government significantly reduces the turnaround time (TAT) for Account opening, the monthly contributions of NPS for the employees can be invested in timely manner, which would lead to higher investment returns for the subscribers.
In fact, the government had once contemplated that ‘ e-NPS for Government’ be made mandatory with effect from April 1, 2022. However, it was observed that still various departments/nodal offices under Government sector were yet to adopt e- NPS Government holistically and therefore decided against making it mandatory.
Benefits
Some of the benefits that accrue to stakeholders from its adoption include Ease of on-boarding of employees and online verification/authorization of employee NPS information by Nodal Offices; Easing of Nodal Offices’ work from manual process of account opening and freeing them from handling papers and associated challenges of dispatching the physical forms to CRA/ CRA FC; Paperless process of enrollment with eSign/OTP; Optimizing the cost of Account opening; Expediting the account opening process compared to existing modes of account opening methods made available to the Government Sector and Timely PRAN generation and hence timely deposit of NPS contribution for higher investment benefits.
Also, since employees fill the data in eNPS portal themselves while on boarding, data entry/digitization errors may come down resulting in decline in rejection of forms. There is also elimination of logistical cost associated with submission of physical forms by Subscribers to Nodal Offices, by Nodal Officers to CRA-FC and re-submission of forms, the PFRDA has said.