Nirmala Sitharaman and Jairam Ramesh spar over Atal Pension Yojana

Lok Sabha 2024: War of words between Finance Minister Sitharaman and Congress leader Ramesh over Atal Pension Yojana design.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh got into a war of words over the Atal Pension Yojana (APY), after Mr. Ramesh termed the scheme “poorly designed”.

Hitting back, the Finance Minister accused the Congress leader of “hoodwinking” in the named of vote bank politics.

The pension scheme, named after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, provides social security for the workers in the unorganised sector.

Citing a media report on a sample study by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) on the pension scheme, the Congress leader, in a post on X, said the Atal pension scheme “is a fitting representation of the Modi government’s policy making: headline management, with few benefits actually reaching the people”.

Quoting the news report, Mr. Ramesh said that up to a third of the subscribers dropped out of the scheme because their accounts were opened without their “explicit” permission.

Further, he said nearly 83% of the subscribers are in the lowest slab of ₹1,000 pension, “because the monthly contribution for it is low and it goes ‘unnoticed’ by the beneficiaries”.

“For subscribers, the amount of return is not very attractive since it is a fixed income pension, which loses value with rising prices,” Mr. Ramesh noted.