Sir,
In http://www.jagoinvestor,com/2009/05/nps-new-pension-scheme-detailed.html there is a clear statement that you can get a lump sum at your retirement and a fixed monthly income for the lifetime in NPS. It will work almost the same way as Private Pension Schemes .And if it has equity option and than, why cant we say that it is better than purely debt oriented EPF?. After all EPF gives us only 8.5% +taxfree & NPS can give double digit return +Taxfree in revised DTC.Both the schemes have same objective of forming a corpus at the time of retirement.