The government has announced a cut in small savings rates by 50-100 basis points for the first quarter of the new financial year. This is the second time that interest rates on small savings schemes have been cut in the past one year. In the April-June quarter of 2020-21, the government had slashed rates of small savings schemes by 70-140 bps. With the latest cut, interest rates on these schemes have been reduced by a total of 120-240 bps in one year.
The rate of interest on Public Provident Fund (PPF) has declined from 7.1 per cent earlier to 6.4