The Pension Fund Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) has empanelled six life insurers for providing annuity services to subscribers of the National Pension Scheme (NPS). The NPS was extended to all citizens from May 1, 2009. 

After retirement at the age of 60 years, an employee can exit NPS with a maximum of 60% of his corpus while the remaining funds will have to be invested in an annuity plan on offer from one of the empanelled service providers. 

The six life insurers appointed are Life Insurance Corporation, SBI Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, Star Union Dai-ichi Life and Reliance Life Insurance Co. Subscribers can choose from any of the six service providers and can also make their choice of the annuity scheme from among the schemes being offered by these providers. 

The NPS was extended to unorganized sector workers where the government this year sanctioned a support of Rs 2,065 crore towards Swavalamban scheme to be implemented under the NPS. This is likely to benefit about 70 lakh workers of the unorganized sector in the next five years. 

Under Swavalamban scheme, the government contributes a sum of Rs 1,000 per annum in each NPS account for unorganized sector workers that include anganwadi workers. (Times of India)