Operative PMJDY accounts rise to 86%

0.8 mn banking touch-points have been mapped on the Jan Dhan Darshak (GIS) App:

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) is one of the biggest financial i nclusion initiatives in the world. The central government has completed on 7 years of successful implementation of this scheme August 28, 2021. PMJDY is a national mission for financial inclusion to ensure access to financial services, namely, banking / savings & deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance, pension in an affordable manner.

200 MN A/C CREDITED IN 10 DAYS

One in 2 accounts, opened during March 2014 to March 2020, was a PMJDY account. Within 10 days of nationwide lockdown in 2020 more than about 200 million women PMJDY accounts were credited with ex-gratia. PMJDY has been the foundation stone for people-centric economic initiatives. Whether it is direct benefit transfers, covid financial assistance, PM-KISAN, increased wages under MGNREGA, life and health insurance cover, the first step of all these initiatives is to provide every adult with a bank account, which PMJDY has nearly completed.

Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman has underlined the importance of this scheme: “The journey of PMJD-led interventions has in effect, produced both transformational as well as directional change thereby making the emerging FI ecosystem capable of delivering financial services to the last person of the society, the poorest of the poor. The underlying pillars of PMJDY, namely, banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured and funding the unfunded has made it possible to adopt multi-stakeholders’ collaborative approach while leveraging technology for serving the unserved and underserved areas as well.”

GENDER, GEOGRAPHY

As on 18th August 2021, number of total PMJDY accounts stand at 430.4 mn. 55.47% (238.7 mn) Jan-Dhan account holders are women and 66.69% (287 mn) of PMJDY accounts are in rural and semi-urban areas. During first year of scheme 179 mn PMJDY accounts were opened. There has been a continuous increase in number of the accounts. PMJDY accounts have grown 3-fold from 147.2 mn in March 2015 to 430.4 mn as on 18-08-2021. This is undoubtedly a remarkable journey for the financial inclusion program.

JAN DHAN DARSHAK APP

A mobile application, was launched in 2018 to provide a citizen centric platform for locating banking touch points such as bank branches, ATMs, Bank Mitras, Post Offices, etc. in the country. Over 0.8 mn banking touch-points have been mapped on the geographic information system GIS App- Jan Dhan Darshak App. The facilities under Jan Dhan Darshak App could be availed as per the need and convenience of common people. The web version of this application could be accessed at the link http://findmybank.gov.in.

The Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance and National Informatics Centre (NIC) have jointly developed the mobile app called Jan Dhan Darshak as a part of financial inclusion (FI) initiative. As the name suggests, this app acts as a guide for the common people in locating a financial service touch point at a given location in the country. This app is also being used for identifying villages, which are not served by banking touch-points within 5 km. These identified villages are then allocated to various banks by concerned SLBCs for opening of banking outlets. The efforts have resulted in significant decrease in number of such villages.

OPERATIVE ACCOUNTS

In August 2021, out of total 430.4 mn PMJDY accounts, 368.6 mn (85.6%) are operative. Continuous increase in percentage of operative accounts is an indication that more and more of these accounts are being used by customers on a regular basis. Only 8.2% PMJDY accounts are zero balance accounts. As per extant RBI guidelines, a PMJDY account is treated as inoperative if there are no customer induced transactions in the account for over a period of 2 years.

DEPOSITS INCREASE 6.38 TIMES

In today’s covid times, the remarkable swiftness and seamlessness has been witnessed with which Direct Benefit Transfer (DBTs) have empowered and provided financial security to the vulnerable sections of society. Total deposit balances under PMJDY accounts stand at `1.46 trillion. Deposits have increased about 6.38 times with increase in accounts 2.4 times between August

2015 and August 2021. An important aspect is that DBTs via PM Jan Dhan accounts have ensured every rupee reaches its intended beneficiary and preventing systemic leakage.

AVERAGE DEPOSIT UP

Average deposit per PMJDY account is `3398. Average deposit per account has increased over 2.7 times over August 2015.

AVERAGE DEPOSIT PER ACCOUNT

Increase in average deposit is another indication of increased usage of accounts and inculcation of saving habit among account holders.

RUPAY CARDS JUMP

Total RuPay cards issued to PMJDY account holders are 312.3 mn as of August 2021. Number of RuPay cards and their usage has increased over time. RuPay cards have shoot up to present level from 157.4 mn in 2015to 245.1 in 2018 to 297.6 mn in 2020. Accounts opened are online accounts in core banking system of banks, in place of earlier method of offline accounts opening, with technology lock-in with the vendor. There is a feature of inter-operability through RuPay debit card or Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS) through fixed-point Business Correspondents and simplified KYC / e-KYC in place of cumbersome KYC formalities.

309.45 BN: SMOOTH DBT

Jandhan provides an avenue to the poor for bringing their savings into the formal financial system, an avenue to remit money to their families in villages besides taking them out of the clutches of the usurious money lenders. PMJDY has brought the unbanked into the banking system, expanded the financial architecture of India and brought financial inclusion to almost every adult.

Under PM Garib Kalyan Yojana, an amount of `500 per month for 3 months (April’20 to June’20), was credited to the accounts of women account holders under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). A total of `309.45 billion has been credited in accounts of women

PMJDY account holders during covid lockdown.

As informed by banks, about 50 million PMJDY accountholders receive direct benefit transfer (DBT) from the government under various schemes. With close monitoring in this regard through regular VCs with banks and NPCI, the share of DBT failures due to avoidable reasons as a percentage of total DBT failures has decreased from 13.5% (FY 19-20) to 5.7% (FY 20-21).

THE ROAD AHEAD

Eligible PMJDY account holders will be sought to be covered under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY). Banks have already been communicated about the same. Promotion of digital payments including RuPay debit card usage is done amongst PMJDY account holders through creation of acceptance infrastructure across India. Improving access of PMJDY account holders to micro-credit and micro investment, such as flexi-recurring deposit, is an ongoing exercise.