Govt slashes saving schemes, NSC and PPF interest rates

New Delhi, Dec 27: Public gets another blow from government as the interest rates for small saving schemes have been slashed including NSC and PPF by 0.2 percentage points for the January-March period.

At the same time, investments in the five-year Senior Citizens Savings Scheme has been retained at 8.3 per cent. The interest rate on the senior citizens' scheme is paid quarterly.

A finance ministry notification said rates have been reduced across the board for schemes such as National Savings Certificate (NSC), Sukanya Samriddhi Account, Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) and Public Provident Fund (PPF). However, interest on savings deposits has been retained at 4% annually.

As per the notification, PPF and NSC will fetch a lower annual rate of 7.6% while KVP will yield 7.3% and mature in 11 months.