After notification of November 2017 whereby the security of deposits in PPF account was snatched in case of NRIs when their PPF accounts were deemed to be closed from the date they attained status of NRI and rate of interest from the date of their obtaining status of NRI will be at par with rate of interest in post office accounts. Thereby interest on deposits in PPF is reduced from 8.7% to 4 % from the date depositor become NRI. Now the Public Provident Fund (PPF) has been drastically altered by Budget 2018 giving a big jolt to the public in large and depositors in particulars. The scheme, which was created under its own separate act, Public Provident Fund Act, 1968, has been moved to a separate law that will now be at par with all small savings schemes. With this move, the 50-year old Public Provident Fund Act has been repealed in one fell.  A big jolt means that the statutory protection against creditors given to the PPF account is now gone. In other words, your bank, income tax authorities or other creditors will be able to apply for the attachment of your PPF account to satisfy debts owed to them. This protection was given to depositors in the PPF account by Section 9 of the Public Provident Act, 1968, which will now stand abolished after the passage of The Finance Bill, 2018. The law which will house all small savings schemes including PPF is called the Government Savings Banks Act, 1873. The schemes that will be housed under it are the Post Office Savings Accounts, National Savings Time Deposits, National Savings Recurring Deposits, National Savings Monthly Income Scheme, Sukanya Samriddhi Scheme, National Savings Certificates (VIII Issue) and Kisan Vikas Patra. The government revises the interest rates on these schemes every quarter considering the prevailing interest rates on government bonds.  The old PPF provided for the manner of subscription, interest payable and withdrawal from the PPF. These will now be specified by the Central Government under the Government Savings Banks Act, 1873. However, please note that the Employee Provident Fund corpus remains protected from attachment by Section 10 of the Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952. That has not been touched.