The National Savings Scheme, being a project run by government bureaucracy, gives an unfair advantage to pensioners that are ex-government employees. Other pensioners, or old folk who get no pension from government, are excluded from this good scheme. It is proposed that this discriminatory scheme be merged with the Bahbood scheme and the investment limit for the merged scheme should be raised to sixty lakhs so that the current pensioners are not at a loss. As a matter of fact the upper limit for the merged schemes might even be raised to 80-90 lakhs. This will cover the very high inflation we are faced with and also give NSS more invested funds. Corporate clients should be excluded from NSS. This will release funds for investment and thereby create jobs. Presently entrepreneurs are putting money in NSS and not investing those funds. This is a bad scheme and its economic cost is very high. The banks are crying hoarse that NSS is taking away their deposits. But they have only themselves to blame. They were virtually giving no profit for savings deposits of up to one lakh. Only when SBP made a ruling did they offer a profit of 5%. This, at a time when the spread between deposits and lending is more than 10%. This is too measly. -MUZAFFAR A. GHAFFAR, Lahore, December 29.