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Post office small savings schemes offer attractive interest rate and are also considered safe and secure
India Post offers multiple small savings schemes which still earns a relatively high return. Post offices have better penetration than banks. People from rural areas generally depend a lot on post office schemes. Recently post offices have changed a lot of rules regarding withdrawal and other issues. This change in rules has a great impact on common man’s life. If you have deposited your money in post offices, you should also be aware of this.
India Post has increased the withdrawal limit for its customers. With this in change, the India Post can compete with commercial banks and their saving scheme plans.
Major changes
Mainly five important changes were made in early August for the ease of the customers. As per the new guideline, the account holder can withdraw up to Rs 20,000 in a day in the branch of Gramin Dak Seva. Earlier, the withdrawal limit was only Rs 5,000.
Besides, no Branch Postmaster (BPM) will accept cash deposit of more than Rs 50,000 in an account in a single day. This means that cash transactions of more than Rs 50,000 cannot be possible in one account in a day.
Additionally, for senior citizen customers cash withdrawal can be done by any one authorised person apart from the customer himself. Due to surge of covid and others this rule has been introduced again in the post office.
From now onwards, any deposit or withdrawal will be done only though cheques. That means no cash transaction is permitted for Public Provident Fund (PPF), Senior Citizen Savings Scheme (SCSS), Monthly Income Scheme (MIS), Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP), National Savings Certificate (NSC) schemes etc.
And lastly, customers have to maintain a minimum balance in his/her post office small savings scheme. The account holders must keep a minimum balance of Rs 500 in the post office saving scheme account per month. However, if the minimum balance is less than Rs 500, then Rs 100 will be deducted as account maintenance fine.
India post is the leader
A study by SBI in last April revealed that post offices virtually monopolise the small savings space in the country accounting for as much as 82% of the deposits, while banks account for the rest 18%. According to the data compiled by SBI, in FY18 of the total small savings kitty of Rs 5.96 lakh crore in the country, Rs 1.08 lakh crore was with the banks and Rs 4.88 lakh crore was with post offices.
Bottom line
Post office small savings schemes offer attractive interest rate and are also considered safe and secure.
These decisions might not make everyone happy. “A few things such as maintenance of minimum balance or transaction only through cheque are not welcome. We want some changes in the rules. Post office schemes are for the common people and the government must listen to them,” said Nirmal Das, general secretary, WB Small Savings Agents Association.