Financial Services Department Secretary M Nagaraju on Tuesday said there is a need to reconsider the salary limit of Rs 15,000 per month for compulsory pension to provide social security to the people. Nagaraju said here that it is very bad that some people, especially those working in the private sector, who earn more than Rs 15,000 per month, do not have any pension cover and become dependent on children as they grow older.
Nagaraju told that those who earn less than Rs 15,000 per month. Registration in the EPF (Employees’ Provident Fund) system is mandatory for them. But it is not mandatory for those earning more than Rs 15,000. The officer said that we need to consider this…. How can we secure the future of those who earn a little more so that their future is secure and they are not dependent on children in old age?
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Speaking at industry body CII’s funding summit here, Nagaraju called it an anomaly. This is different from the government’s aim to bring maximum people under pension schemes. Nagaraju said that the number of beneficiaries of the government-backed Atal Pension Scheme has reached 8.3 crore and 48 percent of them are women. He said that the government’s efforts to bring more and more people, including those in the unorganized sector, under social security measures will continue in the future.
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Speaking at the same event, Swaminathan S Iyer, member (life insurance), insurance regulator IRDA, said that amid rising consumer demand, it is a challenge to ensure that the younger generation has adequate wealth when they retire after 30 years. He said that with increasing consumerism, what can we do today to ensure that in 30 years, when they (Gen Z) retire, they have enough money. This is the challenge before all of us.
Iyer said that more than two-thirds of Indians do not have life insurance. He said that the objective of opening the insurance sector to the private sector 25 years ago was to make this sector more prosperous. He regretted that more than 85 percent of the business of insurance companies comes from urban areas and coverage in remote areas is not adequate.