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The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, which was launched in August 2014 to provide universal access to banking services for every household, has turned six on Friday, marking a milestone in the country’s financial inclusion journey.
“Today, six years ago, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched with an ambitious aim of banking the unbanked. This initiative has been a game changer, serving as the foundation for many poverty alleviation initiatives, benefitting crores of people.#6yearsOfJanDhanYojana”, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted on Friday.
Total accounts opened under PMJDY is at 40.35 crore in August 2020. As of August 2015, the first full year of PMJDY, the number of PMJDY accounts opened stood at 17.90 crore.
As on date, about 63.6 per cent of PMJDY account holders are from rural areas. The urban share of PMJDY account holders is 36.4 per cent. Over 55 per cent PMJDY account holders are women.
The PMJDY scheme was launched based upon six pillars. These are universal access to banking services—Branch and BC; Basic savings bank accounts with overdraft facility of ₹ 10,000/- to every household; Financial Literacy Programme—promoting savings, use of ATMs, getting ready for credit, availing insurance and pensions, using basic mobile phones for banking; Creation of Credit GuaranteeFund—To provide banks some guarantee against defaults; Insurance—Accident cover up to ₹ 1,00,000 and life cover of ₹ 30,000 on accounts opening between August 15, 2014 to January 31, 2015; Pension scheme for the unorganised sector. It may be recalled the Government had extended the comprehensive PMJDY beyond August 2018 by four more years with some modifications.
Going forward, the endeavour of the Government will be to ensure coverage of PMJDY account holders under micro insurance schemes. Eligible PMJDY account holders will be be covered under PMJJBY and PMSBY. Also on the cards. is promotion of digital payments including RuPay debit card usage amongst PMJDY account holders through creation of acceptance infrastructure across India. The Government also proposes to improve access of PMJDY account holders to micro credit and micro investment such as flexi recurring deposits etc.
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