Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) chairman Deepak Mohanty on Tuesday said that the regulator would allow pension funds to invest in sovereign green bonds as and when issued.
The government is expected to issue sovereign green bonds in the second half of the current financial year as part of the overall market borrowing programme.
Currently, there are 10 pension fund managers that manage funds under the National Pension System.
Last financial year, the government raised Rs 16,000 crore from the issuance of maiden Sovereign Green Bonds (SGrBs) with the objective to utilise the proceeds for funding public sector projects seeking to reduce carbon emissions.
Currently, the PFRDA’s assets under management (AUM) is at Rs 9.8 trillion and will certainly be more than Rs 11 trillion by FY24 end, Mohanty said.
Talking about APY saturation drive, Mohanty said 2.9 million new subscribers have been enrolled under the scheme during the first quarter of the current financial year against 2.7 million in the first quarter of FY23.
The regulator has set a target of 13 million new subscribers to be added under the APY scheme in FY24 as against 12 million in FY23.
In all, 55 million enrolments have taken place since the launch of the scheme.
APY is the guaranteed pension scheme of the Government of India providing monthly pension in the range of Rs 1000- Rs 5000, to self and spouse with the return of accumulated corpus to the surviving nominees.
During the day, PFRDA reviewed performance and strategies of banks and State Level Bankers’ Committees for 2023-24 to accelerate comprehensive coverage of APY.
The SLBCs in the North Zone have contributed significantly towards the annual target of FY 2022-23 with Uttar Pradesh achieving 165 per cent of the target followed by Madhya Pradesh (145 per cent) and Rajasthan (117 per cent), he said.
First Published: Jul 18 2023 | 7:31 PM IST