Cong not in favour of pension for the poor: Nirmala Sitharaman

Reacting to Jairam Ramesh’s remark that the Atal Pension Yojana is a “poorly designed scheme,” Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday slammed the Congress General Secretary and said that the Congress prefers that the poor should not have pensions so that they are forced to rely on government handouts, which keeps them dependent on “dynasty politicians.”

The Congress on Tuesday attacked the Modi government over the Atal Pension Yojana, alleging it is a “very poorly-designed scheme” and a “paper tiger” that needs officials to hoodwink and coerce people into participating in it.

Lashing out at Congress’ criticism of the Atal Pension Yojana, Sitharaman said, “On the Atal Pension Yojana, @Jairam_Ramesh known for using verbal sophistry to hide facts, is being malicious or is ignorant of the basic tenets of designing a good pension scheme.”

She further said that the Atal Pension Yojana is designed based on best practice choice architecture to automatically continue the premium payment unless the subscriber opts out.