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Total accounts opened under PM Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) touched 462.5 million in eight years since the launch of financial inclusion initiative, taking the deposits in these accounts to Rs 1.73 trillion as on August 10, 2022.
PMJDY accounts opened till August 2021 stood at 430.4 million. The scheme was launched on August 28, 2014 with the motive of ‘banking the unbanked’, with 179 million accounts being opened in its first year. The scheme has expanded its coverage to 67 per cent rural or semi-urban areas, and has 56 per cent of women accountholders.
However, operative accounts as a percentage of the total number Jan Dhan accounts declined in August 2022. Out of a total of 462.5 million PMJDY accounts in August 2022, 375.7 million or 81.2 per cent were operative. This compares with 368.6 million operative accounts or 85.6 per cent of the total number of Jan Dhan accounts in August 2021.
Average deposits per Jan Dhan account rose to Rs 3,761 in August 2022 from Rs 3,398 a year ago. The average deposit per account was up over 2.9 times from Rs 1,279 in August 2015.
The increase in the average deposit is an indication of increased usage of accounts and the inculcation of the saving habit among accountholders, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
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“The JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhar-Mobile) pipeline created through account holders’ consent-based linking of bank accounts with Aadhar and mobile numbers of the account holders, which is one of the important pillars of financial inclusion ecosystem, has enabled instant direct benefit transfer (DBT) under various government welfare schemes to the eligible beneficiaries,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
The advantage of the architecture created under the financial ecosystem came handy during the Covid-19 pandemic, facilitating direct income support to farmers under PM-KISAN and transfer of ex-gratia payment to women PMJDY account holders under PM Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) seamlessly and in a time-bound manner, Sitharaman said in a statement.
About 54 million PMJDY account holders receive direct benefit transfer from the government under various schemes. To ensure that the eligible beneficiaries receive their DBT on time, the Department of Financial Services has been identifying reasons for DBT failures that can be avoided, in consultation with DBT Mission, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), banks and various other ministries.
This has helped reduce the number of avoidable DBT failures as a percentage of the total failures, to 9.7 per cent in FY22 from 13.5 per cent in FY20.
Digital transactions have seen an increase with 319.4 million RuPay debit cards being issued under PMJDY, installation of point of sale (PoS) machines and introduction of UPI, taking total such transactions to 71.95 billion in FY22 from 9.78 billion in FY17, the ministry said.
Total RuPay card transactions at PoS and e-commerce have increased from 282.8 million in FY17 to 1.51 billion in FY22.
The centre now plans to cover PMJDY accountholders under its flagship insurance schemes, PM Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and PM Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), and improve access for them to micro-credit and micro investments plans such as flexi-recurring deposit.
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