Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tabled the Economic Survey 2025 today, January 31, 2025, highlighting key reforms, future growth prospects, and planning. While the survey covered several critical data points, such as expectations for inflation to remain under control, projected GDP growth to be within 6.3 per cent to 6.8 per cent, and expectation of no noticeable growth in consumption, it also noted an increase in pension subscribers in India.
The survey highlighted a 16 per cent year-over-year growth in the number of subscribers, as of September 2024.
The economic survey is released a day prior to the Union Budget. The document is important because it provides data about the economy on key indicators such as inflation, GDP growth, fiscal trends, etc., and also provides recommendations to address economic challenges.
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Pension: The Ultimate Social Security
Ensuring adequate social security for Indian citizens is the need of the hour, and growing pension subscribers only indicates financial awareness and a secure future for them. In India, where the projections say that seniors will reach around 20 per cent of the total population by 2050, and most of them have no sustainable adequate income source, subscribing to a suitable plan and securing a pension remains the only solution.
People without pensions and no other income in old age will be left with no other option but to depend on their children or relatives even for their routine expenses. Although the government provides welfare pensions to the needy based on their eligibility criteria, but that is a meagre amount one can’t sustain in the absence of another support system.
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Taking into account that there are 57 crore people working in the unorganised sector, as per the Labour Ministry, there is no provision for social security. For the organised sector workers, the employee pension scheme (EPS) is also not available since September 1, 2014, if their salary is more than Rs 15,000.
Now, people are left with no other choice but to opt for pension plans from the insurance companies or enroll under the National Pension System (NPS) or in Atal Pension Yojana (APY) depending on their eligibility.
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As per the RBI’s NCFE Financial Literacy Survey, only 25 per cent of people in India have plans to save for retirement. However, the latest economic survey data shows a decent growth in number of pension subscribers.
