Mumbai: The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) proposes to launch a pension scheme for workers in the unorganised sector in the next six-seven months.

The New Pension Scheme (NPS) for the unorganised sector is a contribution-based scheme, in which the three pension fund managers - SBI Pension Fund, UTI Pension Fund and LIC Pension Fund - will manage the corpus, according to investment guidelines laid down by PFRDA.

The scheme now covers all central government employees who joined service on or after 1 January 2004.

The Scheme has a current corpus of Rs1,500 crore, which is likely to go up to as much as Rs6,000 crore in the next six months, when 21 state governments are expected to transfer their pension funds to NPS.

''Around 87 per cent of the working population in our country is not under pension schemes. We are in the process of appointing an institutional advisor to advice us on the matter,'' said N R Rayalu, who is the managing trustee of New Pension Scheme (NPS) Trust, the first-level supervisory body in the NPS.

''Most of the working class in our country is in the unorganised sector. We need to reach out to them in order to make 'defined contribution' pension scheme a success story,'' said Rayalu.

An institutional advisor will be appointed to help NPS with the modalities of the large-scale rollout. Four firms  - Mercer, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst & Young (E&Y) and Crisil – have been shortlisted four the purpose, N R Rayalu, CEO of the New Pension Scheme (NPS) Trust, said.

The name of the advisor will be announced within a week, he said. Thereafter, he will be expected to submit its recommendations on the rollout for NPS to the unorganised sector within a couple of months.

The PFRDA will also appoint an institutional advisor soon to recommend the roll-out strategy for the new pension schemes. ''We expect the recommendations from this advisor in another 2-3 months,'' he added.

A separate committee under Deepak Parekh has also been constituted to chart out investment guidelines for pension funds. Meanwhile, the PFRDA also plans to invite expressions of interest to appoint more pension fund managers in the country.

At present, there are only three public sector managers owned by Life Insurance Corporation, UTI Asset Management Company and State Bank of India, which manage the pension funds for those who joined government service after 1 January 2004.