years of age. This is more suitable to a 20s investor. Conservative Life Cycle Fund (LC-25) with a 25% starting equity exposure, may be suited to older investors. The regulator add a new asset class Alternative Investment Funds (AIF) to the existing menu of equities, government securities and corporate bonds, available on NPS. Who can join A citizen of India, whether resident or non-resident or an OCI card holder can join NPS (Through a circular issued on 29 October 2019 PFRDA has stated that now Overseas Citizen of India (OCIs) can enrol to invest in NPS tier-1 accounts), subject to the following conditions: The subscriber should be between 18 and 70 years old as of the date of submission of his/her application to the Point of Presence (POP) / Point of Presence–Service Provider-Authorized branches of POP for NPS (POP-SP). The subscribers should comply with the Know Your Customer (KYC) norms as detailed in the subscriber registration form. Should not be Un-discharged insolvent and individuals of unsound mind. A non-resident can open an account, but the account will be closed if the citizenship status of the NRI has been changed. As per circular No: PFRDA/2021/36/SUP-CRA/14 Dated:26.08.2021, those Subscribers who have closed their NPS Accounts are permitted to open a new NPS Account as per increased age eligibility norms, ie. From 65 years to 70 years. Subscriber base The Central government employee subscribers grew 4.9% on year to 2.28 million in FY22 while state governments subscribers grew 8.5% to 55.8 lakh during the year. The total number of subscribers as of March 31, 2022, was 5.2 crore, up 23% from a year ago. Total NPS assets under management stood at ₹7,36,000 crore as of March 31, 2022, up from ₹5,78,000 crore as on March 31, 2021 Withdrawal Premature withdrawal in NPS before age 60 required parking 80% of the sum in an annuity. One can withdraw 20 percent of the corpus before 60 years but he/she must buy annuity with 80 percent of the corpus. In 2016, the NPS allowed withdrawal of up to 25% of contributions for specified reasons, if the scheme is at least 3 years old with certain conditions. One can withdraw the complete amount if the pension collected is less than ₹5,00,000. This amount was increased to ₹5,00,000 as per PFRDA Circular dated 14 June 2021. Tax benefits Investment in NPS is eligible for tax benefits as follows: