Many people do not know about the Voluntary Deposit Scheme at work in Mumbai.

If you are a user of Mahanagar Telephone, Mahanagar Gas or Reliance (electricity, Adag) – chances are you are if you are staying in Mumbai for a long time you use all 3 services. Let us assume that your telephone bill, gas bill and electricity bill are Rs. 1800, Rs. 1000 and Rs. 4000 per month.

This means that every month you need to keep about 7000 in your savings bank account so that you make the payment on the due date. You could either pay it online or offline. Paying offline means you need to make 3 cheques, write out the name, amount, etc. and then deposit it in a drop box. Then you need to pray that they collect it and bank it.

Or of course you could use an ECS facility – and the amount will be debited from your bank account.

You have another option too. You could pay a ‘Voluntary Deposit’ to all these 3 organisations. Say Rs. 20,000 each. All of them have a limit – please check their websites. Now if you have say Rs. 20,000 in MTNL you will be entitled to 7%p.a. interest on the unused amount. So if 1800 is removed from the fund, you will get interest on the balance of Rs. 18,200 for one year. However as and when the new bill is generated again that is deducted. You could top it up once in a while – online or offline. The interest amount is not much, but still it is higher than the savings bank account. Also immaterial of what ever amount the bill is for it is debited to your account – in the ecs mandate normally you give a limit.

This is very useful for senior citizens (do it for your parents), pays some interest, and is very convenient….