Small savings interest rate up

The Finance Ministry has raised the interest rates on two key small savings schemes — the five-year Senior Citizens Savings Scheme and the Sukanya Samriddhi Account Scheme . While the annual interest payable on the senior citizens scheme stands at 9.3 per cent with effect from April 1(it was 9.2 per cent earlier), the interest on Sukanya Samriddhi has been hiked to 9.2 per cent (9.1 per cent). The rates for most small savings scheme, however, remained unchanged.