NPS returns for government and private employees

The New Pension Scheme for private citizens, who were allowed to join since May 2009, gave better returns than the one for government employees, which started from 2004 onwards. For most fund managers, it was the corporate bond and government securities that gave more returns than equities. On an average, the returns for private accounts were around 11% for 2010-11, which is less than one percentage point less than what NPS offered to private citizens in 2009-10.

While Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund gave the highest return in equities, SBI Pension Funds gave the highest returns in corporate bonds. UTI Pension Fund gave the highest returns in government securities. For central government employees, the NPS has a return ranging between 8.05% to 8.45%, which is less than the 9.5% given by Employees Provident Fund Organisation. Interestingly, the returns for state government employees were more than for the central government, which were between..

9.88-11.34%. For private citizens, up to 50% of their corpus can be invested in equities and the rest in government securities and corporate bonds. For government citizens, only up to 15% of the total corpus is allowed to be invested in equities..

source:The Financial Express