INTEREST RATES ON SMALL SAVINGS HAVE CHANGED WITH w.e.f 01.04.2013.

Small savings schemes including Public Provident Fund (PPF) will earn lower
interest from April 1 2013, the government announced on Monday.
The rate of interest across most schemes has been lowered by 0.1 percentage point. PPF which earned an annual interest of 8.8% in 2012-13, will now offer 8.7% from
the new financial year. Senior Citizen Savings Scheme would offer 9.2% against 9.3%
earlier, 10-year National Saving Certificate (NSC) would give 8.8% against 8.9% and 5-year NSC would return 8.5% instead of 8.6% last year.However, interest rate on
savings account and 1-year fixed deposits remain unchanged at 4% and 8.2% respectively.
Small savings schemes are central government schemes operated through a network of  post-offices and nationalized banks.The government, on the recommendations of the
Shyamala Gopinath Committee, has benchmarked interest rates on Small Savings schemes to yields on government securities of similar tenure, from April 2012.
The rates are revised once every year on 1st of April.

Scheme Rate of Interest w.e.f. 01.04.2012 Rate of Interest w.e.f. 01.04.2013
Savings Deposit 4.0     to 4.0
1 Year Time Deposit 8.2 8.2
2 Year Time Deposit 8.3 8.2
3 Year Time Deposit 8.4 8.3
5 Year Time Deposit 8.5 8.4
5 Year Recurring Deposit 8.4 8.3
5 Year SCSS 9.3  9.2
5 Year MIS 8.5  8.4
5 Year NSC 8.6  8.5 
10 Year NSC 8.9 8.8
PPF 8.8  8.7
//posted on 25.03.2013 at  17.10 hrs//