What to do if Atal Pension Yojana contribution stops from your post office savings account

If your Atal Pension Yojana (APY) contribution is not being deducted due to closure of your post-office savings account or non-maintenance of the minimum balance in the old post-office savings account, then here is some help for you.

The Department of Posts has issued a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to streamline the contribution towards the Atal Pension Yojana in case an APY subscriber/contributor’s post office savings account has been closed due to non-maintenance of minimum balance or otherwise.

“This Office is receiving various references/complaints (from subscribers/contributors) that their APY subscription is not deducted from the PO Savings Account because of the closure of the PO Savings Account, either due to not maintaining minimum balance or otherwise. To overcome customers' difficulties and enable them to continue their APY policy, a detailed SOP has been prepared and the same is attached herewith,” states the circular dated November 30, 2022.


Step-by-step guide for linking of new savings account for active APY policies
The post office department needs to ensure that a new post office savings account is opened under the same CIF (Customer Information File) with which the APY policy premium debits were linked.

Once this is done, the post office department needs to link the new post office savings account number with the customer’s APY policy (for contribution debits) in their records instead of the old one. The CIF ID will automatically get populated for single accounts. However, for joint accounts, the CIF ID needs to be entered manually.

The post office branch can cross-check that the details of the account holder and APY policyholder match before the submission of the modification.

Once the new savings account number/CIF ID is verified by the post office branch officials, the new account will be linked to the APY for contribution debits.

If your APY contributions are pending because your earlier savings account has become inactive then the post office's internal software/records will also show the pending contribution towards the pension policy and the penalty amount that an individual is liable to pay.

Pending contributions along with the penalty amount will be deducted from the balance in the new savings account by end of the day. The individual should ensure that there is sufficient balance in the new savings account.

The penalty amount for the delay in contributions to Atal Pension Yojana varies from a minimum of Re 1 per month to a maximum of Rs 10 per month.