The Government of India adopted 'National Pension System'(NPS) with an objective to bring central and state government employees under universal security system from 1st January, 2004. NPS was based on individual retirement accounts (IRAs). An individual would save and accumulate assets through his entire working life. Upon retirement, the individual would be able to use his pension assets to buy annuities from annuity providers and obtain a monthly pension.

NPS is based on a unique Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN) which is allotted to eachSubscriber upon joining NPS. NPS accumulates savings into subscribers PRAN while he is working and using the accumulations at retirement to procure a pension for the rest of his life.

PFRDA has also made NPS available to all citizens of India, including the unorganized sector workers, with effect from 1st May, 2009 on a voluntary basis. PFRDA has also launched a separate model to provide NPS to the employees of corporate entities, including PSUs since December 2011. This model is titled "NPS - Corporate Sector Model".

To improve the uptake in the scheme, the NPS service began being offered through CSCs in April 2017 through a licence issued to the CSC SPV by PFRDA. The NPS scheme allows for systemised savings during the beneficiary's working years, thus inculcating a financial discipline among individuals to save for the future.

CSC VLEs have following advantages:

• • Wider reach
• • Product understanding
• • Technologically enabled solution
• • Cost-effective

With the above three combinations, VLEs can take the advantage to add more customers. CSC also conducts training at regional level to enhance product awareness amongst the end customers. VLEs earn instant commission of Rs. 160 on each new NPS account which is opened by them, and in case of contribution to existing pension account instant commission Rs. 24 is available to the VLEs.