Now may be a good time to invest in PPFs and NSCs

The Central government has reduced the interest rates on small saving schemes, including the national savings certificate (NSC), public provident fund (PPF) and Kisan Vikas Patra (KVP) by 0.2% between January and March 2018.

As per an IANS report, the move aims to coax banks to reduce their deposit rates. The report also adds that the PPF and NSC will earn 7.6% interest from January 1, 2018, while KVPs will earn even less (7.3 per cent), a Finance Ministry notification said on Wednesday.

Earlier, PPF, NSC and KVP were offering 7.8, 7.8 and 7.5 per cent interest, respectively.

While the Senior Citizen`s Savings Scheme of five-year period will offer 8.3% interest, the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana for the girl child will now offer 8.1 per cent.

The government on Wednesday announced it will undertake additional market borrowing of Rs 50,000 crore in the remaining period of the current fiscal to meet expenditure.

The reduction in small savings interest rates for the next quarter comes after official data showed on Tuesday that falling for the second consecutive month, the total revenue collected under GST touched Rs 80,808 crore in November -- down from Rs 83,346 crore in October, possibly also due to the large scale rate cuts made last month.