9 years on, Jan-Dhan helps govt seal leaks and purge bogus accounts

About 6.26 PMJDY account holders receives DBT

About 62.6 million holders of the Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) accounts have received direct benefits as the scheme completes its ninth year. This has helped the Centre plug leaks, weed out fake accounts, and target genuine beneficiaries of government schemes.

Over the years, Jan-Dhan accounts have become fundamental to the JAM trinity (linking Jan-Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar, and mobile numbers), allowing benefits to be transferred directly to verified bank accounts of identified beneficiaries in a much more transparent manner.

“The JAM trinity has led to the removal of duplicate or fake beneficiaries and the plugging of leaks, resulting in cumulative savings of more than Rs 2.73 trillion between 2015 and 2022,” according to government officials.

The latest data shows that the government transferred Rs 7.16 trillion in 2022–23 (FY23), which is 100x more than what it did in 2013–14 (FY14) when direct benefit transfer (DBT) was introduced.

In FY14, Rs 7,367 crore was transferred, which became fivefold within a year of the implementation of PMJDY to Rs 38,926 crore.

The government leveraged Jan-Dhan to mitigate the impact of the pandemic through immediate DBT to rural households. Within 10 days of the nationwide lockdown, more than 200 million women’s PMJDY accounts were credited with ex-gratia,” a government official said.

PMJDY was launched on August 28, 2014, with the expressed objective of providing universal banking services by opening zero-balance bank accounts for every unbanked household.

This was based on the guiding principles of banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured, and funding the unfunded.

In nine years, the total number of PMJDY accounts reached 500 million as on August 16, up from 147.2 million at the end of March 2015. By the end of FY23, the total number of PMJDY accounts stood at 486.5 million.

The total combined deposits in these accounts stood at Rs 2.03 trillion, up from Rs 15,670 crore at the end of March 2015. By the end of March 2023, deposits under PMJDY were Rs 1.98 trillion.

The number of zero-balance accounts dropped sharply from 58 per cent in March 2015 to just 8 per cent of the total PMJDY accounts at present.

Similarly, the number of RuPay debit cards issued for PMJDY accounts increased to 339.8 million as on August 16, from 131.5 million at the end of March 2015.

The average deposit per account increased to Rs 4,063 from Rs 1,065  at the end of March 2015. The average deposit stood at Rs 4,087 at the end of FY23.

“Efforts are also underway to improve the access of PMJDY account holders to micro-credit and micro-investment options such as flexible recurring deposits (RDs). As balances rise, routing part of the savings into an RD could help them get better returns,” said Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi while briefing the media on Saturday.

The scheme offers multiple advantages to account holders, such as a bank account without the requirement of a minimum balance, free-of-cost RuPay debit cards with in-built accident insurance of Rs 2 lakh, and an overdraft facility of up to Rs 10,000.

The finance ministry is currently working to ensure that Jan-Dhan account holders get maximum coverage under the micro-insurance schemes — Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) — to provide affordable insurance and security to people, Joshi said.

So far, PMJJBY has 175 million and PMSBY 380 million enrolments; the Atal Pension Yojana has reached 55 million subscribers.

“We don’t want to make these schemes compulsory but are trying the persuasion route, with banks holding financial literacy camps and special drives to make people aware of the benefits,” he underlined.

Joshi said that the finance ministry was also coordinating with ministries that had a field-level presence, such as anganwadi or ASHA (accredited social health activist) workers. “We are also examining the use of databases such as the eShram portal of the labour ministry to identify people who we believe may not be covered,” he added.