et now the pensions regulator may ask the government to partly meet the account maintenance costs of its recentlylaunched new pension system nps aimed mainly at the countrys poor following criticism that the schemes fixed costs are far too high for these small saversunder the proposed cost structure savers will need to shell out rs 470 in costs each yearwith rs 350 going to the national securities depository ltd nsdl for account maintenance and at least another rs 120 in the form of levies on contributionsthese charges which could drop in the years ahead as rising numbers of subscribers bring in economies of scale in administration costs are seen as high especially for poor subscribers and could discourage small savers from the schemethe nps was launched on may 1 and could become the only real safety for hundreds of millions of people in the unorganised sector although it is open to everyonethe government could consider being a cocontributor to the scheme for the unorganised sector the government already does it for the organised sector said pension fund regulatory development authority pfrda chairman d swarupunder the employees provident fund organisations epfo pension scheme the government contributes 116 of employees salary to the pension fund if the government makes a similar contribution into the nps savings of the poor it would ease the cost burden for thempfrda officials say in the long run the recordkeeping charge would become a very small fraction of total savings besides these charges will enable customers to get access to a professional service from nsdl which has invested heavily in a new system to maintain records of millions of subscribers and needs to recoup its investmentan estimated 8 crore people are eligible to join the nps which has very low fund management fees the pfrda is also suggesting that the government provide similar tax breaks to nps as available to other retirement schemes such as the public provident fund ppf and the general provident fund subscribers could see nps payouts being made taxfree in the first budget of a new government after elections pfrda wants a level playing field with similar schemes the treatment for nps should be better as it is a real longterm investment going up to 30 yearson the basis of current indications from the finance ministry we are confident of getting exemption on nps outgo said a regulatory officialindustry officials said an early clarification on the tax benefits would determine the schemes popularity