I write with reference to the letter published in your August 18 edition about the woes of savers who have invested their savings in NSS.

On July 31, I visited the NSS branch in DHA Phase-V to surrender the Behbud Certificates in the name of my mother, and to purchase on her behalf a new set of these certificates that carry the recently revised rate of return. I reached the branch at around 9.45 a.m. only to find that the there was no room left for me because some 60 savers, who had been queuing up at the branch entrance since 8.00 a.m., had somehow managed to squeeze in; their patience deserved nothing but admiration.

I had to wait until 3.30 p.m. when the process was completed. I remember that, after me, at least another 100 savers had come for the same service. While collecting the new certificates, I asked the dealing officer about the time he goes home. He replied, “8 or sometimes 9 o’clock,” because thousands of savers want to benefit from the increased returns, but the time-consuming surrender-and-reissue process is taxing the patience of both savers and the NSS frontline staff.

The National Savings Directorate is unaware of the increased work pressure and has not put in place relief measures for its frontline staffers, who are over-worked – something they will not be able to put up with for long. Secondly, during the life of these certificates, their holders often shift from one locality to another, in fact, from one city/town to another. But the impression I got was that only the issuing offices disburse the periodic return on the certificates, and this service can’t be transferred to another NSS office.

This inconvenience is eroding saver interest in the NSS instead of reviving it after the upward revision of the profits rates. What the NSS must now offer to the savers (a large number being old) are the conveniences they need to substantially increase the ability of NSS for raising funds directly from the public and thus cutting the much-criticised and damaging government borrowing from the SBP. By operating the way it does, NSS is not doing its best to help the government get out of this trap.

Mrs Farriel Shahid Karachi