Jan Dhan accounts cross 50 mn, banks collect over Rs 3,500cr

Banks have opened as many as 50 million accounts under the Jan Dhan scheme till September 25 and collected over Rs 3,500 crore in deposits, a top Finance Ministry official said here today.

Led by state-run banks, the system has opened over 5 crore accounts under the Jan Dhan scheme as of September 25 and the deposits collected through the scheme have crossed Rs 3,500 crore, Financial Services Secretary G S Sandhu told the annual meeting of the Indo-American Chamber.

The average deposit per account through this scheme is Rs 800-900, he said.

Giving a major push to the Aadhaar scheme, Sandhu said, all these accounts will be seeded to the Aadhar number and will have biometrics to avoid the duplication.

The Jan Dhan scheme was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his Independence Day address and was formally launched on August 28.

On the opening day itself, banks opened over 15 million accounts. The government has set a target to open 75 million such no-frills accounts by Republic Day next year.

Each of these accounts comes with Rs 5,000 overdraft facility and a Rs 1 lakh accident cover and are linked only to the RuPay cards.