Hundreds of people were seen queuing up outside post offices and banks yesterday to withdraw interest on their savings certificates  as the government has increased tax from 5 per cent to 10 per cent on interest.

 When a 72-year old retired professor, Akhtari Khanom, went to Shantinagar post office at 7.30 am to withdraw interest on her savings certificate, she saw hundreds of people standing in a

queue for the same purpose. She had to stand in a queue till 5pm. After 5 pm, an employee of the post office informed her that they will provide interest money till late at night.

The scenario is similar in Dhaka where people, mostly the elderly, went to post offices and banks yesterday to withdraw interest of on savings certificates.

In his budget speech in Parliament recently for FY2019-20, finance minister AHM Mustafa Kamal had announced to increase the rate of tax of on savings certificates from 5 per cent to 10 per cent.

Department of National Savings director general Samsunnahar Begum told The Independent that she was informed by the National Board of Revenue (NBR) authority yesterday that it has imposed 10 per cent interest on savings certificates from July 1 this year.  “As far as I know, there are at least two crore customers who have savings certificates across the country,” she said.

But she failed to say how much money has been invested by savings certificates holders.

The director general (DG) of Bangladesh Post Office, Shudhanshu Shekhor Bhadra, told The Independent that they were providing interest on savings certificates for the last few days. He also said that there was a huge crowd at their office. “We are yet to get any instruction and receive a circular from the authorities concerned whether to cut 10 per cent tax from the interest on savings certificates from July 1 or not. We'll provide interests to our customers as per the existing rules until we get any circular from the authorities concerned,” he said.

Sources in Bangladesh Post Office said they were providing interest on savings certificates to customers through 1,426 post offices across the country.

According to government sources, the net sales of national savings certificates stood at Tk. 39,733 crore in July-March of FY2018-19. They said the government has paid interest on savings certificates to the tune of Tk. 18,154 crore in the last 11 months of FY2018-19.

Earlier, the Finance Division had issued a letter, which was sent to the Bangladesh Bank (BB), Directorate of National Savings, Bangladesh Post Office and Sonali Bank, asking them to carry out transactions of national saving certificates online from July 1.