How the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana Calculator works
Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana (SSY) is a government-backed savings scheme in India for the education and marriage expenses of a girl child. This calculator projects the maturity value of an SSY account using the scheme's own structure: deposits are made once a year for up to 15 years, each year's balance earns interest at the rate you enter, and the account matures 21 years after it is opened.
The formula
For each year of the 21-year tenure, the calculator adds that year's deposit — only during the years you choose to deposit, up to 15 — to the running balance, then applies the annual interest rate to the whole balance:
Balance = (Balance + Deposit) × (1 + r) for each deposit year, then Balance = Balance × (1 + r) for each remaining year with no deposit, repeated for 21 years, where r is the annual interest rate written as a decimal.
This mirrors the annually-compounding structure the SSY scheme uses. In practice the exact interest posted each month depends on the lowest balance held between the 5th and last day of that month, but compounding once a year on the full annual deposit is the same standard approximation most public SSY calculators use.
Worked example
Depositing Rs 1,50,000 a year for all 15 allowed years at an 8.2% annual rate grows to roughly Rs 71.8 lakh by the 21-year maturity date, of which around Rs 49.3 lakh is interest and the remaining Rs 22,50,000 is the amount actually deposited. The exact figure depends heavily on the rate used, and that rate will not stay fixed for 21 straight years — see the note below.
Deposit limits and account rules
- Eligibility: the account can be opened for a girl child from birth up to her 10th birthday, by a parent or legal guardian.
- Deposit range: a minimum of Rs 250 and a maximum of Rs 1,50,000 can be deposited per financial year, for up to 15 years from account opening.
- Maturity: the account matures 21 years after opening, or earlier if the girl marries after turning 18.
- Partial withdrawal: up to 50% of the balance can be withdrawn once the girl turns 18, or earlier for approved higher-education costs.
Why the interest rate matters most
The Government of India revises the SSY interest rate every quarter, so no single rate actually holds for the full 21-year tenure of a real account. This calculator assumes one constant rate for simplicity and transparency — run it again with a higher and a lower rate to see how sensitive the maturity value is to future changes, and check the current quarterly notified rate before relying on the number for planning.