After pressure from commercial banks and International lenders, the ministry of finance has given up the initiative for mobilising Rs80 billion in public saving schemes through short-term treasury bills with maturity period of three months to one year.

According to sources that Central Directorate of National Savings had finalised a scheme in the form of three different saving instruments for the period of three months, six months and twelve months at the prevailing market-based interest rate of around 12-13 percent.

The sources declared that the banks and lending agencies speculate that large numbers of depositors will withdraw their deposits due to higher saving interest rate of 12-13 percent by the CDNS.

While the government is already paying 12-13 percent through treasury bills to commercial banks by which they are earning huge profits on government borrowing.

Hence, CDNS had proposed the premise for common savers' benefit through attractive saving scheme programmes that will not affect any additional burden on the treasury bills.

Monitoring Desk