© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
The government aims to open more than 3 crore accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) during the current financial year 2024-25, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Tuesday. On the eve of the PMJDY completing ten years, Sitharaman said the scheme has helped the government to reach out to people, especially in identifying people who are in need of money.
The government’s flagship financial inclusion programme Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi ten years ago on August 28, 2014.
The number of bank accounts under PMJDY has risen nearly four-fold to 53.13 crore as on August 16, 2024 from 14.72 crore in March 2015. Total deposits under PMJDY have increased to over Rs 2.31 lakh crore as of August 2024 from Rs 15,670 crore as of March 2015, the Finance Ministry said. The government’s target is to open “more than 3 crore PMJDY accounts during the current financial year”, Sitharaman said.
“We believe that most of the adults in the country have been covered with bank accounts and our focus is to cover leftover adults and neo-adults,” she added. As on August 14, 2024, there were more than 173 crore operative CASA accounts in the country out of which over 53 crore are operative PMJDY accounts. The average balance in PMJDY accounts has increased to Rs 4,352 as on August 16 this year from Rs 1,065 in March 2015. Around 80 per cent of PMJDY accounts are operative and 20 per cent inoperative.
The Finance Ministry said the PMJDY has been the foundation for people-centric economic initiatives. PMJDY has helped provide adults with a bank account which has helped in direct benefit transfers, COVID-19 financial assistance, PM-KISAN.
The JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) has given a boost to the Direct Benefit Transfer programme and expanded its coverage from partial to ubiquitous, the Finance Ministry said. Of the total accounts opened under the scheme, about 66.6 per cent accounts are opened in rural and semi-urban areas. Of the total 53.13 crore PMJDY accounts, 29.56 crore (55.6 per cent) belong to women account holders.
“Today, 99.95 per cent of all inhabited villages have access to banking facilities within a 5-km radius through banking touch points (including bank branches, ATMs, banking correspondents (BCs), and Indian Post Payment Banks),” the Ministry said.
Under the PMJDY, there are no account opening charges, no account maintenance charges, and no minimum balance charges. Free RuPay debit card, with in-built accident insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh, and access to overdraft facility of up to Rs 10,000, are other major features of the scheme.
