You have a daughter, and she is below the age of 10, so naturally, you would be concerned about her future all the time. Therefore, to end all your worries, you can take the help of the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana. This sounds like a common story across households.
The government of India launched this initiative to help parents of girl children secure their future. This Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana is actually a part of the government’s Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign.
Still have no idea about this scheme? In this article, you will learn everything about the Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme – from the account opening rules to the returns it offers- so you can make the most of it.
What is the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY)?
The Sukanya Samriddhi scheme helps the guardians and parents of girl children secure their kids’ futures. This scheme encourages parents to build a fund for the future needs of their girls, including higher education and others. The government launched the scheme in 2015, and since then, it has become a highly preferred investment avenue for people.
While opting for this scheme, you first need to open an account for your eligible children and, later on, make regular deposits into the account for a specific period. The interesting part is that the deposits will continue to earn interest over the investment period. And when it matures, you can withdraw the principal and the interest thereon.
All you need to know about opening the account
If you are a parent or a guardian of a girl child under ten, you are eligible to open an SSY account. However, not all banks can help you open an account; only authorized banks, as well as post offices, can help you with that.
Each girl can open only one account in her name. Furthermore, the number of accounts is limited to two girl children in a family. But if the birth of a single girl child is followed by multiple births like twins or triplets or even more girl children are born together, this rule can be relaxed for more than two accounts per family.
There are some basic rules to follow-
- In case of multiple births, here, either all the children will be eligible, or neither of them will be eligible to open the SSY account.
- If by any chance the family’s threshold limits for two accounts have not been reached yet at the time of the multiple births, then all the girl children would be eligible to open the SSY.
Which documents are required?
To open the account for your girl child, there are several documents you need to have as a part of the application process-
- Birth certificate of the girl child
- Identity or residential proof of the parent or the guardian
- In case there are multiple girl children in a single birth, a medical certificate for proof of their birth is needed.
All you need to know about making deposits
Once you have opened an account in this SSY scheme, you need to make investments later on. Here are the key rules and regulations regarding SSY deposits-
- In this scheme, you must deposit a minimum of Rs. 250 to open the account.
- The minimal deposit amount during the financial year is Rs. 250.
- Whereas the maximum deposit amount during the financial year is Rs. 1.5 lakhs.
- There is no limit regarding the number of deposits you make either in the month or the year.
- Furthermore, deposits can be made through cash, cheque, demand draft, or even online transfer.
Make sure your SSY account does not go into the default category
After opening the account as a part of the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, you need to make sure that the account is active. Make sure that you do a Sukanya Samriddhi account balance check from time to time. Therefore, deposit a minimum amount of Rs. 250 each year. Remember, the account will be tagged as a default account if you don’t do this.
However, you can revive the default account before it completes fifteen years from the opening date. So, to maintain it, you need to pay Rs. 250 and an additional sum of Rs. 50 per year (for every year of default).
What will be the interest on the deposit of the SSY Scheme?
Do you know why you should make an investment in this kind of scheme? The whole point is to earn returns on investment for your child. The rate of interest on the scheme, as of July 2022, is 7.60% annually. There is annual compounding and calculations. The interest earned each year is credited to the accounts of depositors.
