Interest rate on PPF, NSS cut

The government has cut the interest rates on small savings schemes including Public Provident Fund (PPF) due to low interest yield on government securities, a senior official said on Friday.

The interest rate has been cut to 8.1 percent from 8.7 percent in PPF and to 8.6 percent from 9.2 percent on Sukanya Samridhhi Account (SSA), a senior official of the National Savings Institute (NSI) said.

The five-year National Savings Scheme (NSS) will now fetch a return of 8.1 percent -- down from 8.5 percent.

The Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) will now mature at the end of 110 months.

"The new rates will be effective from next fiscal (April 1, 2016). The interest will be calculated on quarterly basis," A.K. Chauhan, joint director in NSI, told IANS.

According to him, the main reason for the downward revision was the two year yield on government securities had gone down.

He said the total corpus of all small savings scheme was around Rs.300,000 crore. The net accretion this year was around Rs.65,000 crore till January 31.

The SSA has around 85 lakh accounts with a deposit of around Rs.3,500 crore. The KVP corpus is over Rs.21,000 crore, Chauhan said.