Ten years on, Sukanya Samriddhi scheme’s base is widening, poorer states gaining in participation

A decade in operation, Sukanya Samriddhi has becomes more broad-based

The government’s savings scheme for the girl child, Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana, has become more broad-based over the last decade, with poorer states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar gaining share, a Moneycontrol analysis of data shows.

The scheme allows a parent to invest up to Rs 1.5 lakh per annum on behalf of the girl child, with the account maturing when the girl attains the age of 21.

While the scheme in the first year of rollout in 2015 had over 75 percent of subscriptions coming from the five southern states, as of November 2024, Uttar Pradesh was the largest contributor to the scheme with over a tenth of the accounts.

The state has 4.5 million accounts under the scheme with an 11 percent share, compared with 1.6 million by March 2019 and 25,766 in 2015.

Between 2019 and 2024, Uttar Pradesh witnessed a 22 percent increase in accounts per annum compared with the national average of 20 percent.

Bihar has witnessed a similar rise in accounts. While one of India’s poorest states had just 196 of 420,420 accounts in 2014, it went to 514,353 accounts in 2019 and further to 2.2 million in 2024. Bihar's share in accounts increased from 0.05 percent in 2015 to 3.3 percent in 2019 and further to 5.3 percent in 2024.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu's share dropped from 38.3 percent of accounts in 2015 to 9.2 percent in 2024, while that of  Karnataka came down from 30 percent to 7 percent, with the state accounting for 3 million registrations in 2024.

UP, Bihar gain in deposits as well

The share of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar has increased in deposits as well. Bihar accounted for 4 percent of the Rs 2.64 lakh crore deposited under the scheme in 2024, while Uttar Pradesh’s share was 10.9 percent.

The share of Tamil Nadu declined from 26 percent to less than 10 percent.

Delhi, Chandigarh have more money per account

In terms of deposit per account, Delhi and Chandigarh topped the list with over Rs 1.2 lakh deposited per account. Delhi’s average size of deposit had grown to Rs 1.4 lakh from Rs 70,000 five years ago.

Madhya Pradesh was at the other end of the spectrum with an average deposit of Rs 31,784.