Due to the Sovereign guarantee and the tax advantages, The Public Provident Fund(PPF) is not a prominent debt investment for people. The guidelines which are covering the PPF accounts, are very rigid, and people must remain conscious about them to gain complete benefits of the PPF. If these regulations are not followed by them, the government may mark the account as irregular. The account may be closed, the contributions may be halted or returned, and interest payouts may be halted if the PPF account becomes irregular. After that, it will take a long time to get your PPF account in force.
Important Features of PPF one should know: –
Interest rates: The PPF(Public Provident Fund) interest rate is fixed by the Finance Ministry every quarter. The current PPF interest rate is 7.9%. And, though the interest is calculated every month, it gets credited to your account on 31st March every year. Also, the PPF interest is calculated on the minimum balance between the fifth and the last day of the month.
Lock-in period: The minimum lock-in period of a Public Provident Fund(PPF) investment is 15 years. You can withdraw your entire corpus at the end of the 15th year. But if you wish to stay invested for a longer period, you can continue to do so. You can apply for extensions in 5 year blocks.
How to Reactivate a irregular PPF account??
To re-activate an inactive PPF account you have to submit a written document to the bank branch or post office where you have that account maintained. A penalty of Rs 50 impost for each financial year that your account has been inactive for, which must be paid a re-activation charges. You must also pay the Rs 500 minimum deposit for each year your account has been dormant. Your PPF account will be reactivated once the approval process is completed by your concerned post office or bank.
