Jan Dhan Yojana, the new phase of financial inclusion plan, seems to be receiving good response in Telangana as the information regarding the add-on benefits that come along with the zero-balance account, has been widely publicised among the people.
State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH), which is also the convenor of the State Level Bankers Committee (SLBC) of Telangana, has already enrolled over 450,000 new accounts as against a target of 250,000 accounts, according to P Ravi Kumar, an SBH official working in the financial inclusion division.
Several branches in semi urban and rural areas have been witnessing queues for the last couple of days as the banks ramped up the enrollment drive in the run-up to the formal launch of the programme on Thursday. The state-level launch attended by Union Minister M Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday here was packed with people as managers of various local bank branches also brought new account holders along with them.
The Manager of a local branch of Deccan Grameena Bank (RRB) operating in a predominantly lower-income household area in the city said he had already opened 800 new accounts in the past few days. According to him, people themselves are coming to the banks carrying their Aadhaar cards to open the accounts as they knew about the overdraft facility and insurance cover provided with the account.
Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank, sponsored by State Bank of India, has opened 90773 basic savings bank deposit (BSBD) accounts under the scheme. All the 704 branches of the bank (475 in Telangana and 229 in Andhra Pradesh) organised camps for opening of accounts.
According to SBH officials, the enrollment of new accounts in the bank were almost fully done by the branch level staff themselves while only 16,000 accounts were opened with the help of banking correspondents.
Meanwhile, Naidu said over 9 million households in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana were still out of the banking services fold as only 53.1 per cent of 21 million households in the undivided Andhra Pradesh had bank account. Over 5,000 special camps are being organised to open new accounts in Telangana.
