National Pension System (NPS) is a contributory pension system whereby contributions from subscribers along with matching contributions from respective governments as an employer, are collected and accumulated in an individual pension account of the employee. NPS uses a system of Government/ Autonomous Bodies’ Nodal offices, a Central Recordkeeping Agency (CRA) and designated Pension Funds (PFs), as specified by the respective regulations to achieve synergy and maximum efficiency in operations. NPS is mandatory to all employees joining services of Central Government (except Armed Forces) and Central Autonomous Bodies on or after 1st January 2004. Almost all State Governments have adopted NPS architecture and have implemented NPS mandatorily through Gazette Notifications for the State Government/ Autonomous body employees joining on or after their respective cut-off dates. As a subscriber, you have to submit NPS registration form to your employer on the date of joining itself, it will help in timely generation of PRAN and initiation of uploads in your NPS account. As a subscriber under NPS you are provided with an individual pension account identified by Permanent Retirement Account Number (PRAN) which is unique & portable across locations and employments.