SSY maturity projection.
Maturity at 21 years
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Total deposited (15 years)
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Your breakdown
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Why parents keep coming back to SSY
The Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana is the rare government scheme that genuinely beats most alternatives for a specific job: building a corpus for a daughter’s higher education or marriage. It pays 8.2% for the current quarter, comfortably above PPF, and it is fully EEE. That means the deposit qualifies for a Section 80C deduction up to ₹1.5 lakh, the interest accrues tax-free, and the maturity amount is tax-free in the girl’s hands. A parent or legal guardian can open one account for a girl child below the age of 10, at a post office or most banks. A family can hold a maximum of two accounts, with an exception for twins or triplets. The rate is not fixed for life; the government resets it every quarter, so the 8.2% you see today can move.
The 15-and-21 structure that trips people up
Two timelines run in parallel and they are not the same. You deposit for 15 years from opening, anywhere from ₹250 to ₹1.5 lakh a year. But the account itself matures 21 years after opening. So there is a six-year gap at the end where you stop depositing but the balance keeps compounding tax-free. This calculator handles both legs: it adds your annual deposit and compounds it for the first 15 years, then lets the corpus grow untouched for years 16 through 21.
Worked example: ₹1.5 lakh a year at 8.2%
Suppose you deposit the full ₹1.5 lakh every year. Over 15 years you put in ₹22.5 lakh of your own money. By maturity at year 21, the account is worth roughly ₹71.82 lakh. Almost ₹49.32 lakh of that is interest, and none of it is taxed.
When you can actually take the money out
There is one mid-way liquidity window worth knowing. Once the girl turns 18, you may withdraw up to 50% of the balance at the end of the preceding financial year, specifically to fund her higher education, against proof of admission or fee demand. The account can also be closed for her marriage after she turns 18. Otherwise the money is locked until the 21-year maturity, which is by design. A practical tip: deposit early in the financial year, ideally in April, because interest is calculated on the lowest balance between the 5th and the end of each month. Depositing in March loses you nearly a full year of compounding on that instalment.
Opening rules that decide eligibility
The scheme is deliberately tightly drawn. The account must be in the name of a girl child who is below 10 years of age on the date of opening, and only a natural or legal guardian can operate it until she turns 18, after which she manages it herself. A family may hold a maximum of two SSY accounts, one per girl child, with the genuine exception that twins or triplets in the second birth, or triplets in the first, allow a third account. You will need the girl’s birth certificate, the guardian’s identity and address proof, and the minimum ₹250 to open it at any post office or authorised bank branch. The account is portable across India, so if you relocate you can transfer it to a branch in your new city free of cost. NRIs cannot open a fresh SSY account, and if the girl’s residency status changes to non-resident after opening, the account has to be closed. These constraints are worth checking up front, because an account opened in breach of the rules can be regularised only on the department’s terms.
What happens if I miss a yearly deposit?
The account is flagged as in default, but you can revive it by paying a penalty of ₹50 per defaulted year along with the minimum ₹250 deposit for each missed year. As long as you do that within the 15-year deposit window, the account stays alive and keeps earning interest.
Is SSY better than a PPF for my daughter?
For the specific goal of a girl child’s future, usually yes, because the SSY rate sits above the PPF rate and both share the same EEE status. The trade-off is flexibility: PPF is open to anyone and has a 15-year term with partial-withdrawal options, while SSY locks money longer and is restricted to one girl child. Many parents run both, using the SSY for the daughter’s goals and a PPF for general long-term savings.