Small Saving Schemes: The number of people joining the Post Office Savings Account and Senior Citizen Savings Scheme has decreased continuously. People are still showing interest only in Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana.
Due to reduced returns on Small Saving Schemes, now people are getting disillusioned with them. Especially the number of people joining the Post Office Savings Account and Senior Citizen Savings Scheme has decreased continuously. Of the total 12 small savings schemes, people are still showing interest in only one Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana.
People’s interest in PPF, NSC also decreased
Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary gave this information in a written reply to a question. He told in the Loksabha on Monday that the number of new people joining a total of 12 small savings schemes including Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Saving Certificate (NSC), Post Office Savings Account, Senior Citizen Savings Scheme is decreasing. .
People are getting disillusioned with small savings schemes at a time when on the other hand the pace of opening of demat accounts is on record. The number of demat accounts in the country has more than doubled in the last three years.
People are slowly getting away like this
The Minister of State for Finance said that in all small savings schemes, a total of 4.66 crore new accounts were opened in the financial year 2018-19. After a year i.e. in 2019-20, their number came down to 4.12 crores and in 2020-21 to 4.11 crores. In the current financial year till November, only 2.33 crore new accounts have been opened in these schemes.
People are liking Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana
The minister said that the main contribution in this decline in the new accounts of small savings schemes is of Post Office Savings Account and Senior Citizen Savings Scheme. The new accounts of both these schemes have decreased continuously.
On the other hand, the number of people joining the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana has increased continuously. The minister also informed that there is no plan of the government to start any new small savings scheme for senior citizens or poor sections.