The Department of Posts has started a campaign to reach out to people on its savings schemes, particularly those for children. It has also proposed a tie-up with the State government to implement various welfare and direct benefit transfer schemes through its wide network of post offices.
Post offices are holding special camps to encourage customers to open post office savings bank accounts. The department aims to facilitate single point contact and ensure fewer hassles for DBT beneficiaries through the proposal for tie-up.
Officials of the Postal department said a ‘Maha Login’ campaign was organised every Thursday to help people deposit in various savings schemes. Last Thursday, nearly 53,150 accounts were opened for different postal savings schemes across the State, including Tiruchi and Coimbatore regions.
Of this, about 8,000 accounts were opened in Chennai city region (CCR) on that day. The special campaigns would be held till September-end.
Veena R. Srinivas, Postmaster General (Mails and Business Development) said the department is focussing more to create awareness of savings schemes for children — Sukanya Samriddhi account (SSA) — for girls and Public Provident Fund (Ponmagan Podhuvaippu Nidhi), a 15-year- scheme that can be opened for boys. Nearly 80,000 more accounts in these two schemes are expected to be added through the campaign in CCR alone.
Officials also noted that the SSA and recurring deposits were among the popular post savings schemes. There are nearly 23.33 lakh SSA accounts with deposits worth ₹4,670.81 crore across the State. Tamil Nadu stands first in the country in attracting deposits under SSA.
The higher interest rates offered by post office savings schemes compared to other financial institutions was one of the major reasons for more investors turning their attention towards post offices. Nearly 7.20 lakh savings banks accounts were added across the State between April and July this year. In this, around 1.77 lakh were opened in CCR alone, officials said.
“We are also creating awareness on various facilities including ATMs, mobile and net banking. As of now, postal customers can perform only online postal transactions like balance enquiry, money deposits and amount transfer within post office SB accounts. Intrabanking operations like NEFT and RTGS are in the pipeline,” an official added.
