On October 30, 2019 the union finance ministry of the govt. has made an announcement that Overseas Citizens of India(OCI) are now eligible to apply for National Pension System (NPS) at par with Non Resident Indians (NRIs), as permitted by Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA).
New Feature: As per the released notification, the OCIs can apply for the pension system according to the PFRDA Act 2013 and the amount will also be repatriable based on Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) 1999, guidelines.
Key Points:
i.According to PFRDA, any Indian citizen can join the NPS till the age of 65 years. In the NPS and Atal Pension Yojana (govt backed pension scheme), the subscriber count has 3.18 crores, with more than 66 lakh govt. employees enrolled under the scheme.
ii.Union budget on NPS: In the 2019 union budget, the tax exemption limit for full amount withdrawal on exit/maturity from NPS has increased to 60% from 40% under section 10(12A) of Income Tax(IT) act, while the remaining 40% is already tax exempt.
About OCI:
- OCI scheme registers a person for Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) of all Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) who were citizens of India on 26th January, 1950 or thereafter or were eligible to become citizens of India on 26th January, 1950.
- The registration is exempted for a person who is or had been a citizen of Pakistan, Bangladesh or such other country.
About NPS:
- NPS provides benefit pensions for all the citizens of India who joined after 1 January 2004.
- It was initially designed only govt. employees and later was opened to all Indian citizens.
- The scheme is administered by PFRDA.
