For most banks in India, the past two weeks have been more than hectic as they went the extra mile to take the first steps on the BJP Government’s comprehensive financial inclusion drive under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana’.
Surmounting multiple challenges, the banks have come out with flying colours, going by the fact that nearly 1.5 crore basic accounts were opened on Thursday — the launch date of this ambitious financial inclusion programme.
The scheme is being billed as a ‘record of sorts’, with some bankers even suggesting that this achievement could turn out to be a Guinness record. If there are two aspects that clearly contributed to the initial success of this exercise, it is the strategy of bundling accident insurance cover with the basic bank account as also undertaking the exercise in a ‘camp mode’, say bankers.
“Awareness was being created since the Independence Day (August 15). But it is the move to offer insurance cover without the accountholder having to pay the premium that has drawn people to this programme”, V Kannan, Chairman and Managing Director, Vijaya Bank, told BusinessLine .
Most of the people see clear benefits and, therefore, have opted for this facility, he said.
Vijaya Bank on Thursday opened 2.1 lakh accounts, against the initial target of 2 lakh, Kannan said, adding that the response was very good.
ICICI Bank opened one lakh basic accounts under the scheme, said Chanda Kochar, MD and CEO. “We aim to open 2.5 million accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana,” she added.
Usha Ananthasubramanian, Chairperson of Bharatiya Mahila Bank (BMB), a recent entrant in the public sector bank space, said the “camp mode” was a key enabler for the good response.
Against a target of 10,000 accounts, BMB opened 22,000 accounts across 23 cities on the scheme’s launch date.
“It became easier with ‘camp mode’, which was a much better route than going door-to-door. We saw lot of interest in the Jan Dhan Yojana because of the insurance cover coming along with it,” she told BusinessLine .
First-time accountholders To ensure that only first-time accountholders opt for this programme, BMB had brought in some innovation and prepared a single-line declaration form. The idea was to ensure that a customer commits knowingly to the Jan Dhan Yojana that it is intended for the first-time accountholder.
“Also, many existing bank accountholders came with Aadhaar numbers and wanted to open new accounts under Jan Dhan Yojana.
“We counselled them to seed their Aadhaar number with existing accounts and turned them away. Otherwise, we could have added another 5,000 new accounts to the overall tally of 22,000 accounts opened by us.”