Full form of APY

Full form of APY is Atal Pension Yojana.

The Atal Pension Yojana (APY) was launched to provide life-long pension to labourers working in the unorganized sector. If you join this scheme, the central government will give you and your spouse minimum lifetime pension. Pension will be Rs 1,000, Rs 2,000, Rs 3,000, Rs 4,000 or Rs 5,000 per month depending upon the contribution. Now, how much pension will be given, will depend on your contribution before attaining  60 years of age. This will be discussed in the later paragraphs. 
The amount of pension which you would be getting is directly propotional to the amount of returns that your contribution will fetch in the market. 
In case of death of the investor, their spouse will continue to get this pension. After the death of the spouse, whatever amount will be lying in your pension fund till the age of 60 years will be given to the registered nominee. 

The benefits of Atal Pension Yojana  can be summarized as follows:

1. Investor (subscriber) gets pension. (From the age of 60 till death)
2. After the death of the investor, the spouse continues to avail the pension.
3. After the death of the spouse, the amount deposited (which was deposited till the age of 60 years) is given to the nominee.

If the investor's spouse dies before the investor, then the deposit amount (whichever was deposited by the investor up to the age of 60 years) will be given to the nominee after the death of the investor. 

Eligiblity for Atal Pension Yojana:

1. You must be an Indian citizen.
2. Minimum Entry Age  : 18 years
3. Maximum entry age  : 40 years
4.You must have atleast one savings account with any bank or Post  office.
5. You can open only 1 Atal Pension Yojana account.

It does not matter whether your provident fund account (EPF, PPF, GPF etc.) or NPS account is already there. You can still open an Atal Pension Yojana account. This scheme extends to even the Government employees. 

How to open Atal Pension Yojana Account?
You can go to your nearest Post office or bank branch and apply for this scheme.  

How will you contribute to the Atal Pension Yojana?
You can contribute in monthly, quarterly or half-yearly installments. Installments will be auto-debited from your bank account. 
If there is not enough money in your bank account, then the amount of contribution will be deducted from your account along with the next month's installment. You will also have to pay a small penalty for the same. The penalty will be Rs. 1 per Rs. 100 installment.

---

What if the investor dies before 60 years in the Atal Pension Yojana? 
In the event of the death of the investor before the age of 60, the subscriber's spouse will be given an option to contribute to the customer's account.  Such an account will be maintained in the name of the spouse. The spouse can contribute to the pension account for the remaining period (until the original investor would have reached 60 years of age). 
It is an interesting fact that account maturity still depends on the age of the original investor and not on the age of the spouse. If the investor is 55 years old and dies, assuming wife's age is 50 years, in such a situation, the account will have to be run only for 5 years and not 10 years. 
By doing so, the wife will receive a lifetime pension. After the death of the wife, the entire pension amount (according to the time of maturity) will be given to the nominee.

If the wife (or husband) chooses not to continue the account, the accumulated wealth will be passed on to the spouse. 
If the customer is unmarried or the spouse is not alive, the deposit will be given to the nominee.

---

What if the investor (subscriber) in the Atal Pension Yojana dies after the age of 60?  
After the investor's death , their spouse will continue to get the pension amount. After that when the spouse dies, the deposit amount (your pension corpus at the age of 60) will be given to your nominee. If the spouse has passed away before the investor (and then the investor dies), the pension corpus (your pension corpus at the age of 60) will be passed on to the nominee. 

Can Atal Pension Yojana account be closed voluntarily before the age of 60? How to close Atal Pension Yojana account? (Voluntary Exit From APY) 
Atal Pension Yojana account can be closed for the treatment of any serious illness or in case of death of the investor before the age of 60 years.