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Department of National Savings

department · verified (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head
Dr. Rowshan Ara Begum
Role
Director General
Annual budget
—
Staff
—
Established
1972
Legal basis
Public Debt Act, 1944 (inherited framework for savings instruments); Directorate of National Savings established 1972 under the authority of the post-independence government; upgraded from Directorate to full Department by executive order in 2014.

DNS is executing the second six-monthly adjustment of market-linked NSC rates (July 2025 circular cut all certificate rates by 47-57 basis points from January 2025 levels, effective 1 July 2025) while managing a persistent net redemption trend: cumulative FY2025-26 net sales were negative Tk 555 crore through February 2026, a vast improvement from the Tk 8,771 crore deficit in the same period of FY2024-25. Outstanding NSC stock stands at Tk 3.42 trillion (February 2026). The MTDS FY2025-27 strategy requires DNS-administered instruments to yield ground to T-bonds in domestic debt composition; bank borrowing has crowded out NSC financing in FY2025-26. The NSC Online Management System (nsd.finance.gov.bd) continues to serve as the self-service portal for certificate tracking.

Recent activity

Provenance & notes

DNS was established in 1972 following Bangladesh's independence, on the initiative of the founding government; it inherited the organisational lineage of the National Savings Institute set up under British India's Public Debt Act, 1944. It was upgraded from a Directorate to a full Department in 2014. Headquarters: Dhaka. Parent: Internal Resources Division (IRD) under the Ministry of Finance; DNS is an attached department of IRD, not a division or autonomous body. The NSC Online Management System (https://nsd.finance.gov.bd/) launched in 2019 requires investors to authenticate via NID/Passport number and date of birth; the self-reporting portal (https://nsd.finance.gov.bd/selfreport) allows certificate holders to retrieve investment records and tax deduction certificates without visiting a branch. Current head: Dr. Rowshan Ara Begum, Director General (Grade-1); her predecessor was Mrs. Zakia Khanam (Director General, Additional Secretary), who joined 1 January 2024. The exact date on which Dr. Rowshan Ara Begum joined as DG is not available in primary sources searched as of 2026-05-17; head_since is null. The January 2025 IRD circular that introduced the market-linked rate mechanism (rates fixed every six months against 5-year and 2-year T-bond weighted average yields, with a premium of up to 50 basis points) and the July 2025 circular that effected the first downward adjustment are the two most significant regulatory actions in the 90-day activity window. FY2025-26 non-bank borrowing target is Tk 21,000 crore; DNS-administered instruments have substantially underperformed this target with net redemptions exceeding new sales in most months. Annual_budget_bdt is null: DNS's own administrative budget is not published as a line item separate from the Ministry of Finance consolidated accounts in available primary sources; the NSC-related budget figures (interest payments, outstanding stock, net financing) are government liability figures, not DNS's operational appropriation. Staff count is null: not found in official DNS website or Wikipedia as of verification date. Verification based on 2+ primary sources for all factual claims.

Sources