Opening a NPS account

NPS stands for National Pension System. It's a new better-returns with more-investment system provided by the govt of India for primarily private / unorganized sector employees.

You can simply search for "why should I invest in NPS" in google and get any results like https://www.etmoney.com/blog/6-benefits-for-investing-in-nps/.

Basically if you have extra money and think of future retirement planning, then better to invest a portion of it in NPS. One big advantage is upto 50000INR is tax-deductible. And if you are like me whose some income is eligible for 30% income tax, this 50000INR deduction can save about 15.5K which is not a small amount.

From last couple of years the NPS enrollment procedure is fully digital and if you have a working Aadhar authentication with either OTP or virtual aadhar, this process becomes very easy.

I tried to enroll last year, but there were some glitches in authentication and it did not work out. This year in March 21, when I was looking at my tax outgo, I thought of giving a try to NPS enrollment and found out there are many improvement to the enrollment process. And with 3-4 document scans and a signature scan and one Aadhar OTP authentication later, I was done!

Amazing when this digital stuff works right.

FYI, for retirement planning you have a number of options in India. If you are employed in a private company, then mostly you have Provident Fund, which can get you a small pension also ( albeit after a 10 year continuous subscription - which looks difficult these days ).

Then you can invest in some insurance plans that can get you a chunk of money at retirement.

Then there are pension plans offered by insurance companies as well as investment management companies. And you can select any after checking the credibility of the company.

So with correct investments and limited spending, and little bit of cash-flow management, even privately employed persons can have a comfortable retirement.