Postal savings schemes to have passbooks
RATE REVISION HASN’T
AFFECTED NUMBER OF DEPOSITORS, SAYS POSTMASTER GENERAL
From July 1, customers
investing in Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) and National Savings Certificates (NSC)
will not be issued printed certificates. They will instead get them as
passbooks.
Earlier, the Department
of Posts planned to shift to issue the certificates in electronic mode.
However, officials said
that as the efforts to issue e-certificates did not materialise, it was decided
to provide KVP and NSC in the form of passbooks.
At present, about
25,000 certificates of KVP and NSC are being sold under various denominations
every month in the Chennai city region. While the KVP is available from
Rs.1,000 to Rs.50,000, the denomination for NSC starts at Rs.100 and is
restricted to Rs.10,000.
Discontinued next month
Officials said issuing
of certificates would be discontinued from next month as the printed forms with
specific denominations had to be transported from another place.
“If there was a delay
in obtaining the certificates of certain denomination, it led to shortage.
Moreover, losing certificates also led to several complications,” said an
official.
Now, customers can
obtain a duplicate passbook in case of damage or loss.
Mervin Alexander,
Postmaster General, said the number of customers depositing in various postal
saving schemes had not decreased after revision of rates. Nearly 60,000 new
accounts have been opened even after the interest rates were reduced up to one
per cent over the past two months.
The Chennai city region
contributes about 10 per cent of over six lakh deposits under various schemes
in the State.
“Several people
continue to invest mostly in Selvamagal Semippu account, public provident fund,
senior citizen savings scheme and the NSC.
Saving schemes
Postal savings schemes
contributed to about Rs.6,000 crore of total revenue earned during the last
fiscal. Of this, nearly four per cent of revenue was gained from the NSC and
KVP certificates,” he said.
Meanwhile, postal
agents noted that some new investors hesitated to deposit in postal schemes
after the dip in interest rates. S. Rajpandian, vice-president of Tamil Nadu
Postal Agents Welfare Association, said: “The new rates have reduced by 0.6 per
cent to one per cent, and some schemes like time deposit and monthly income
scheme are witnessing a slight drop in customers. But, agents act as a bridge
in canvassing for postal schemes and have to be encouraged with better
incentives.”
Source :http://www.thehindu.com/