Bonds & NCDs in Kohima — what's actually different here
This is the one product page on this site where a Kohima investor should read the exemption text itself rather than a summary of it. The provision has two limbs. One covers income accruing from a source in the specified areas, and the Supreme Court confirmed in 1976 that it is geographically confined. The other names dividend or interest on securities, and in the text it carries no geographic qualifier at all. Interest on securities is exactly what a bond pays. Whether that reading holds for your particular holdings is not ours to decide, but it is a question with real money attached and almost nobody raises it.
What we can do is be precise about what is and is not settled. The statutory language is public and unambiguous as language: the second limb names dividend and interest on securities without tying it to a place. What is not settled anywhere we could find is how that interacts with other kinds of investment income — and specifically, capital gains on mutual fund units, which is neither a dividend nor interest on securities in terms. We searched for a departmental circular or a reported ruling on the point and found none. So the honest state of play is: one limb reads clearly in the text, an adjacent question has no published answer, and both belong in front of a chartered accountant before they change what you buy.
Set the tax question aside and the ordinary case for bonds in a Kohima portfolio is the same as anywhere. A bond is a contractual obligation of its issuer: a coupon on fixed dates and the principal back at maturity, with no fund manager and no expense ratio between you and the borrower. What you are taking on instead is single-issuer credit risk, undiluted. That is why we shortlist AAA-rated paper from issuers with long track records, and why we would rather see three issuers than one — a debt mutual fund spreads that risk across many borrowers for a fee, and which trade suits you depends on portfolio size more than on cleverness.
There is also a route with no intermediary at all, which we mention because it is genuinely the cleanest first bond exposure available to an Indian retail investor. RBI's Retail Direct portal lets you open a gilt account online and buy government securities, state development loans, treasury bills and sovereign gold bonds directly from the Reserve Bank, with no distributor and no platform fee. It is fully accessible from Kohima. We earn nothing from telling you that, which is rather the point.
On our own position: PSS Ventures is not a SEBI-registered Online Bond Platform Provider. Transacting in listed bonds requires that registration, which is a substantial regulatory and capital undertaking we have not made. So this page shortlists, explains the cash flows and the credit, and routes to an OBPP partner for execution. We also have no advisor resident in Nagaland — Kohima is covered from Guwahati by video and phone. Whether it applies to you turns on your own status and on where your income arises — settle it with a chartered accountant before it changes what you buy.
Local case study
A Kohima professional, a bond ladder, and one question we sent to an accountant
A Kohima-based professional in his fifties wanted predictable income outside equity and had settled on a ladder of corporate bonds. The portfolio conversation was straightforward: three AAA-rated issuers rather than one, staggered maturities so something comes due most years, held to maturity rather than traded. The conversation that took longer was the one we refused to have. He wanted to know whether the coupon income would be exempt under the Scheduled Tribe provision given that the text names interest on securities. We showed him the statutory language, told him plainly that we are not qualified to apply it to his facts, and asked him to get a written opinion before sizing the allocation. He did. We think that is what a distributor is for.
Names, age and amounts changed to protect privacy. Composite of real advisor conversations in Kohima.
FAQs from Kohima investors
Does the Scheduled Tribe exemption cover interest on bonds?⌃
The provision names dividend or interest on securities as a separate limb, and in the statutory text that limb carries no geographic qualifier — unlike the limb covering income from a source in the specified areas. Whether that applies to your particular holdings is a legal determination about your facts. Read the text, then get a written opinion. Do not act on a website's summary, including this one.
What about capital gains on my mutual fund units?⌃
Unresolved as far as we can establish. Capital gains is neither a dividend nor interest on securities, and we found no departmental circular or reported ruling settling whether it falls within the other limb. We are publishing that as an open question rather than inventing an answer, because a confident answer here would be worth less than nothing.
Can I buy listed bonds from Kohima?⌃
Yes, through a SEBI-registered Online Bond Platform Provider. PSS Ventures is not one — that registration is a substantial regulatory undertaking we have not made — so we shortlist and route to an OBPP partner for execution. Nothing about being in Nagaland restricts your access to the instruments themselves.
Is there a way to buy bonds with no intermediary at all?⌃
Yes. RBI's Retail Direct portal lets any Indian retail investor open a gilt account online and buy government securities, state development loans, treasury bills and sovereign gold bonds directly from the Reserve Bank, with no distributor commission and no platform fee. It works from Kohima. We earn nothing from it and mention it anyway.
Are bonds safer than a debt mutual fund?⌃
Different risks, not less of them. A single bond is one borrower's promise, undiluted — if the issuer defaults you are exposed to that one credit. A debt fund spreads the same kind of exposure across many borrowers and charges a fee for doing so. Which is right depends on how much you are investing and whether you can hold enough different issuers to diversify on your own.
Compliance, in plain English
- Who we are: PSS Ventures Pvt Ltd — AMFI-registered Mutual Fund Distributor under ARN-356973. EUIN is quoted on every order slip.
- What we are not: a SEBI Investment Adviser. We do not charge you an advisory fee; we earn trail commission from the AMC on Regular-plan transactions.
- How Kohima is served: We do not have an advisor sitting in Kohima. Sangam Pandey covers it from Guwahati over video and phone, and visits periodically. Everything — KYC, folio, mandate, review — is done remotely; nothing about the service depends on us having an office here, and we would rather say so than list a false address.
- Risk disclosure: Mutual Fund investments are subject to market risks. Read all scheme related documents carefully before investing.
- Grievance redressal: Compliance Officer at pssventures.india@gmail.com. Unresolved escalations: SEBI SCORES / SEBI ODR.
- Registered office: Guwahati, Assam. Open Mon–Sat, 10am–7pm IST. We hold no premises in Kohima, and the structured data for this page says so — it carries the area we serve and no postal address.
- Lead-only product: Bonds & NCDs transactions on this site are at the callback stage in MVP. Execution is via partner channels until the relevant licence (POSP / POP-SP / OBPP) is in place.