The General Provident Fund (GPF) and other similar products will fetch an interest rate of 7.1% until March 2024, the Ministry of Finance said in a recent notification. The GPF interest rates for the previous quarter also stood at 7.1%.
Interest rates on GPF are revised as per the government’s notifications issued every quarter.
As per the notification, the interest rate of 7.1% for the period January-March 2024, will apply to the following funds: General Provident Fund (Central Services), Contributory Provident Fund (India), All India Services Provident Fund, State Railway Provident Fund, General Provident Fund (Defence Services), Indian Ordnance Department Provident Fund, Indian Ordnance Factories Workmen’s Provident Fund, Indian Naval Dockyard Workmen’s Provident Fund, Defence Services Officers Provident Fund, and Armed Forces Personnel Provident Fund.
A government employee becomes a member of GPF by contributing a certain percentage of their salary to the account, which is mandatory except when the employee is suspended.
Subscriptions to the GPF are stopped three months before the date of superannuation, as per the rule.
Here's the GPF interest rate year-wise list:
| Financial Year | GPF Interest Rate |
| 2007 - 2008 | 8% |
| 2008 - 2009 | 8% |
| 2009 - 2010 | 8% |
| 2010 - 2011 | 8% |
| 2011 - 2012 | 8% till November 2011 and 8.6% from November 2011 to March 2012 |
| 2012 - 2013 | 8.80% |
| 2013 - 2014 | 8.70% |
| 2014 - 2015 | 8.70% |
| 2015 - 2016 | 8.70% |
| 2016 - 2017 | 8.1% till September 2016 and 8% from September 2016 to March 2017 |
| 2017 - 2018 | 7.9% from April 2017 to June 2017 and 7.8% from July 2017 to September 20177.8% from September 2017 to December 2017 and 7.6% from January 2018 to March 2018 |
| 2018 - 2019 | 7.6% from April 2018 to September 2018 and 8% from October 2018 to March 2019 |
| 2019 - 2020 | 8% from April 2019 to June 2019 and 7.9% from July 2019 to March 2020 |
| 2020 - 2021 | 7.10% |
| 2021 - 2022 | 7.10% |
| 2022 - 2023 | 7.10% |
(Source: Groww)
On the other hand, members of the Employees' Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) currently get an interest rate of 8.15% on their Employees' Provident Fund (EPF) deposits.
The PPF rate has been unchanged from April-June 2020 when it was cut to 7.1% from 7.9%.
These
three major provident fund accounts—Employees' Provident Fund or EPF, General Provident Fund or GPF and Public Provident Fund or PPF—are saving schemes designed to build a reliable retirement corpus and allow investors to reap benefits at maturity.
(Edited by : Amrita)
First Published: Jan 4, 2024 2:22 PM IST
