Small savings: The holy cow few finance minister would want to touch

While they've all wanted to trim the basket of benefits that PPF offered, they've remained wary of public wrath

You could have run an entire quiz session on small savings and, until a a few years ago, you would have even numerous responses from the audience. It is this level of interest that made successive finance ministers wary of changing any clause in these schemes without any endorsement from the best financial brains in the country. For instance there have been as many as 19 committees in the 26 years since the liberalisation of 1991 that have examined the role of small savings windows run by the Government of India. The first of those was the Rangarajan Committee of