The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) accounts remained free from any unusual increases in balances during the course of elections in five states last month.

The basic bank accounts had witnessed a significant surge during the elections held five years ago due to the alleged routing of money through PMJDY accounts to woo the voters, which resulted in an investigation by some banks.

“However, data shows that there has been no cause of concern this time as far as PMJDY accounts are concerned, thanks to the tight vigil maintained by the banks in coordination with other departments, including the Election Commission (EC),’‘ a senior SBI official told businessline.

Account balance

The total balance in Jan Dhan accounts was ₹2,08,855 crore as of November 29, 2023, spread across 51.04 crore beneficiaries. On November 1, 2023, the total balance was about ₹2.06-lakh crore, which shows that the increase was quite normal.

An analysis of total balance trends shows that, generally, the increase per month ranges from ₹1,000 crore to ₹1,500 crore.

The provisional data available with the State Level Bankers’ Committees (SLBCs) of Telangana, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, and Mizoram has not shown any abnormal transactions, according to officials.

Special focus

A functionary of SLBC of Madhya Pradesh said banks laid a special focus on Know Your Customer (KYC) norms in transactions involving deposits or withdrawals, along with  strengthening back-end data tracing and monitoring for monitoring bulk transactions, even though the amount could be small.

The EC also put in a coordinated effort with seamless sharing of data on suspicious transactions.  It issued specific instructions and standard operating procedures (SOPs) to track and report them.

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