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Informist, Thursday, Oct. 1, 2026

 

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--Banking secy: Foreign pension funds cautious on India infra invest returns 
--Banking secy: Hopeful of significant invest from offshore pension funds 
--Banking secy: Long way to go to cover Indians under pension cover 
--Banking secy: India seeking foreign pension funds' invest in infra 
--Banking secy: Pension needs to reach self-employed, agri, informal sector 
--CONTEXT: Banking Secy Lohia speaking at NPS Diwas event 
--Banking secy: Pension fund managers must responsibly manage corpus
--CONTEXT: CEA Nageswaran speaking at NPS Diwas event 
--CEA: Patient pension funds must channelise investment in Indian infra
--CONTEXT: PFRDA Chairperson Ramann speaking at NPS Diwas event 
--PFRDA head: Miles to go before arriving at minimum assured pension scheme

 

NEW DELHI – The government is hopeful of attracting significant foreign investment in the Indian infrastructure sector as these investors see long-term value of the sector, banking secretary Sanjay Lohiya said Thursday. "We look for investments from pension funds, and pension funds from outside India to come and invest in India. As the cities grows, everybody is hopeful that a lot of investment, especially long-term investment, we will be able to have a significant portion coming from these pension funds," Lohiya said at his inaugural address at NPS Diwas 2026.

 

He, however, warned that the pension funds need to be mindful of the responsibility with which they need to manage the pension corpus of subscribers. "It requires a lot more sense of responsibility, that our National Pension system succeeds, and more and more people join," he said at the event organised by the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority.

 

Chief Economic Advisor Anantha V. Nageswaran said "Pension savings are among the longest duration and most patient capital that the economy can have, and a country that must build infrastructure over the next few decades needs exactly that type of capital. As pension assets grow, that is where they can do the most good in financing long-lived assets with some underlying return,".

 

Currently, 10 pension fund managers operate under PFRDA--LIC Pension Fund Ltd., SBI Pension Funds Pvt. Ltd., UTI Pension Fund Ltd., HDFC Pension Fund Management Ltd., ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Co. Ltd., Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund Ltd., Aditya Birla Sun Life Pension Fund Management Ltd., Tata Pension Fund Management Pvt. Ltd., Axis Pension Fund Management Ltd., and DSP Pension Fund Managers Pvt. Ltd. Together, they manage a pension corpus of INR 17.57 trillion.

 

Parliament's nod to the Insurance Amendment Bill in December 2025 paved the way for raising the foreign direct investment limit in the pension sector to 100%. According to The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Act, 2013, foreign ownership of pension funds is capped at 26% or the prescribed limit for insurance companies, whichever is greater. Currently, the FDI limit in pension funds is set at 74%.

 

Lohiya said there is a vast untapped segment of the populations that remains outside the pension coverage. "It is very important that not only the salaried employees, we are able to reach people who are self-employed in various informal sectors, also in agriculture. So, we have a long way to go, but I can see that in the last so many years, NPS has done a remarkable job of expanding its reach amongst people," he said.

 

 

Warning against going after quick returns, Nageswaran said it was important for people to understand that while short-term trading may be exciting, "it is the long-term savings in long-duration assets that provides for the family's health and well-being when he or she stops earning." He said "PFRDA, intermediaries and the households must shed the habit of short-term thinking and consider long-term investing which may not be exciting, but which is doable, sustainable and which makes for peace of mind in our old age."

 

Pension coverage in India continues to be inadequate, Nageswaran added. India's pension system has expanded steadily, but overall coverage remains modest relative to the size of the workforce, the Economic Survey for 2025-26 (Apr-Mar) had said.

 

PFRDA Chairperson S. Ramann said the there has been a growth of about 23% in the subscriber base in the non-government sector of the pension scheme. "We have worked very hard towards bringing out additional income yielding schemes from the corpus," he said. "I can only tell you that this is a work in progress because we have many miles to go before we arrive at what is really desired as a minimum assured pension scheme," he added.  End

 

Reported by Sagar Sen and Priyasmita Dutta

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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