BackMahila Samman Savings Certificates now available in Post Offices: Centre
The certificates will be available in 1.59 lakh post offices throughout the country, effective immediately.
PremiumThe Finance Ministry has recently released an official notification for Mahila Samman Savings Certificates, 2023.
The certificates will be available in 1.59 lakh post offices throughout the country, effective immediately.
The scheme was introduced in the 2023-24 Budget by the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman, with the objective of promoting financial inclusion and empowering women, including girls.
The notification was issued late last night.
"These measures will immensely benefit the post office small savings customers and attract more investment in these schemes through post offices, especially in rural areas and amongst girls, women, farmers, artisans, senior citizens, factory workers, government employees, small traders and other sections of the society. They will get a better return on their investment in small savings schemes," the Finance Ministry said.
The recently launched Mahila Samman Savings Certificates, 2023, has a two-year tenure and provides a fixed interest rate of 7.5% compounded quarterly. The scheme also offers flexible investment options and partial withdrawal facilities, with a maximum investment ceiling of Rs. 2 lakh.
Furthermore, the interest rates of various small savings schemes have been increased, effective from today.
The government has raised the rate of interest on various Small Savings Schemes for the first quarter of the financial year 2023-24 starting April 1 by up to 70 basis points (100 basis points is equal to 1 percentage point).
The government typically reviews the interest rates on small savings schemes every quarter.
The formula to arrive at the interest rates for a small savings scheme was given by the Shyamala Gopinath Committee. The committee had suggested yields on government bonds should be the benchmarks for the interest on various small savings instruments and should be reset every first of April.
Several small savings schemes have undergone a hike in interest rates, with the Senior Citizen Savings Scheme's rate increasing by 20 basis points, National Savings Certificate's rate by 70 basis points, Kisan Vikas Patra's rate by 30 basis points, and Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana's rate by 40 basis points.
In addition to this, the Reserve Bank of India has raised the repo rate since May 2022 to tackle increasing inflation. This move has prompted banks to follow suit, resulting in a positive impact on various deposit schemes.
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