New Delhi, (IANS) Central securities depository NSDL's e-Governance Infrastructure has decided to cut maintenance and account opening charges for subscribers of the National Pension System (NPS) from April 1, the pension regulator has announced.

"NSDL e-Governance Infrastructure Ltd would be rationalising its charge structure w.e.f. April 1, 2017 which would be Rs 40 for PRA opening, Rs 95 for PRA Annual Maintenance and Rs 3.75 for each transaction," the Pension Fund and Regulatory Development Authority (PFRDA) said on Monday.

The current charges are Rs 190 for PRA annual maintenance, Rs 50 as account opening fee and Rs 4 for transaction fee.

The regulator also said Karvy Computershare will be joining NSDL as second Central Recordkeeping Agency (CRA) from February 15.

"It has been decided that Karvy Computershare would be allowed to service the new accounts till March 31, 2017 and thereafter it would be allowed to function as a full-fledged CRA with interoperability functionality providing for option to shift for existing subscribers of NPS from April 1, 2017 onwards," PFRDA said.

A CRA is responsible for record-keeping, administration and customer service functions for all NPS subscribers. The function includes receiving instructions from subscribers through the points of presence, transmitting such instructions to pension funds and effecting switching instructions received from subscribers.

From the next fiscal onwards, the subscriber would be provided an option to choose between NSDL e-governance and Karvy Computershare.

"The criteria of allocation of subscribers shall be notified by the Authority from time to time having regard to the subscribers' interest," PFRDA said.

As on January 17, the total number of NPS and Atal Pension Yojna subscribers was over 1.42 crore.