AKM Zamir Uddin
Despite having raised the interest rate on national saving certificates, the government collected only Tk 379.68 crore from the NSCs in the first 10 months against the target of Tk 6,000 crore in FY2011-12.
Data released by the Directorate of National Savings on Tuesday showed that NSCs worth Tk 15,206.72 crore were sold through banks, saving bureaus and post offices in July to April whereas the total sales of NSCs in the same period of FY2010-11 was Tk 14,849.78 crore.
As a result, the net investment stood at Tk 379.68 crore in July-April as Tk 14,827.04 crore had to be paid as payment of the capital against saving instruments sold earlier. The amount of capital money payment was Tk 12,344.11 crore in July-April of FY2010-11, taking the net investment to Tk 2,505.67 crore.
The government, however, had made a target to collect Tk 6,000 crore this fiscal year from saving instruments to meet its budget deficit for the current financial year.
DNS data showed the net investment in NSCs in July to February of FY2011-12 stood at a negative Tk 108.11 crore but in nine months (July-March) it stood at Tk 21.01 crore because of good sales of NSCs in March.
An official of the directorate told New Age on Tuesday that the sales of NSCs had increased from March after the government decided to raise the rate of interest on all saving instruments on February 23 with effect from March 1.
Before that, the sales of savings instruments had been poor in the first eight months of this financial year because of lower interest rate offered by saving certificates compared to bank deposits, he said.
DNS Data showed that NSCs worth Tk 2,210.28 crore were sold in April. On the other hand, the total sale of NSCs in April of FY2010-11 was Tk 1,101.89 crore.
The net investment, however, stood at Tk 358.67 crore in April as Tk 1,851.61 crore had to be paid as payment of the capital money to the clients.
In April of FY2010-11, the net investment entered at a negative of Tk 131.25 crore, because Tk 1,233.14 was paid as capital money.  
Another DNS official said the investments in the saving instruments had yet not reached at a satisfactory level.
As a result, the government will fail to achieve the target of collecting Tk 6,000 crore from NSCs, he said.
Under the circumstances, the government recently decided to increase its bank borrowing by more than 47 per cent to Tk 27,900 crore.
According to the BB data, the government’s bank borrowing increased to Tk 18,013 crore on April 5, 2012 from Tk 15,117 crore as on March 3.