In a bid to widespread Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna's benefits to public, government has amended the Sukanya Samriddhi Account Rules - 2016 that will slash the minimum annual deposit requirement for accounts of the scheme from 1000 Rupees to 250 Rupees per annum.
What is Sukanya Samriddhi Yojna ?
Sukanya Samriddhi scheme launched in 2015, is a government backed scheme targeted towards a girl child and her financial needs. Under the scheme a parent or legal guardian can open an account in the name of the girl child until she attains the age of ten years.
The account can be opened in any post office or commercial bank (generally in all banks where PPF accounts can be opened) with a minimum of 250 and maximum of 1.5 lakh rupees deposited per annum. The special feature of these accounts is their validation of 21 years, where after 21 years of account opening the total amount in the account will be paid to the girl whose name is mentioned in the account.
The account will automatically closed, if the girl is married before the account maturity of 21 years. Deposits can be made up to 14 years from the date of opening of the account. After this period the account will only earn interest as per applicable rates.
Parents can open only one account in one girl's name and a maximum of two accounts for two girl child, while in case of twin girls two accounts will be opened but counted as one i.e. if a parent has two twin girls and one another girl, three accounts can be deepened in that case.
Interest rate, provided under the scheme will be notified by the government, and interest so earned, compounded yearly will be credited to the account, till now the average interest rate is between 8-9 per cent.
Premature withdrawl
1) Premature withdrawal of money from the account is allowed to the girl only, whose name is mentioned in the account, that too if she attains 18 years of age at the time of withdrawal.
2) Secondly premature withdrawal will be allowed only for the purpose of higher education or the marriage of the girl, limiting to only 50 per cent of total amount available in the account in that preceding year.
3) Thirdly, premature withdrawal is available from only those account that have completed at least 14 years of deposit or more.
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