10 Years of Jan Dhan: PM Modi, FM Sitharaman Hail Landmark Step for Financial Inclusion

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday hailed those who worked to make the Jan Dhan Yojana a success and said the scheme has been paramount in boosting financial inclusion.

“Today, we mark a momentous occasion – #10YearsOfJanDhan. Congratulations to all the beneficiaries and compliments to all those who worked to make this scheme a success,” the prime minister said.

The Jan Dhan Yojana has been paramount in boosting financial inclusion and giving dignity to crores of people, especially women, youth, and the marginalised communities, he said.

‘Determination of the People of India’

In another post, PM Modi shared that when the Jan Dhan Yojana was rolled out, “I remember the scepticism that surrounded it too. Some people asked- could it really be possible to bring such a large number of people into the banking system? Will this effort lead to any concrete changes? Yes. The scale of the challenge was enormous, but so was the determination of the people of India to ensure it becomes a reality.”

He added that the success of the Jan Dhan Yojana has two parts to it. One is in the numbers:

Today, over 53 crore people who never imagined they would enter a bank have bank accounts.

These accounts have a deposit balance of over Rs. 2.3 lakh crore.

Over 65% of the accounts are either in rural or semi-urban areas, thus taking the movement of financial inclusion outside the metros. Direct transfers worth almost Rs. 39 lakh crore have taken place, PM Modi said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also reacted on the occasion saying that the Jan Dhan was a progressive step for financial inclusion.

“A progressive step was taken on this day 10 years ago for financial inclusion. PM Modi launched this initiative to ensure crores of our people who didn’t benefit from formal coverage of financial services are brought in to benefit,” Sitharaman wrote on X.

PM Jan Dhan Yojana Launch Date

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, launched on August 28, 2014, is a national mission on financial inclusion encompassing an integrated approach to bring about comprehensive financial inclusion of all households in the country.

“Over 53 crore accounts with over Rs 2.3 lakh crore in deposits is the result of this people’s movement,” FM added.

The plan envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household, financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension facility.

3 crore new accounts during the current financial year

Sitharaman on Tuesday said about 3 crore new accounts under PMJDY are likely to be opened during the current financial year.

Under the scheme, the number of bank accounts grew nearly four-fold from 14.72 crore in March 2015, to 53.13 crore as on August 16, 2024.

Total deposits under PMJDY has swollen from Rs 15,670 crore as of March 2015, to over Rs 2.31 lakh crore as of August 2024.

Sitharaman said, “Our target is to open more than 3 crore PMJDY accounts during the current financial year.”

As of August 14, 2024, there were more than 173 crore operative CASA accounts in the country, including over 53 crore operative PMJDY accounts.

A large number of normal saving bank accounts are also opened by banks. New measures like e-KYC and video KYC have made the account opening process paper-less, eliminating the need to visit a branch or banking correspondent for opening of bank account.

“We believe that most of the adults in the country have been covered with bank accounts and our focus is to cover leftover adults and neo-adults,” Sitharaman added.

The average balance in PMJDY accounts has increased from Rs 1,065 in March 2015 to Rs 4,352 as on August 16 this year. Around 80 per cent of accounts are operative.

PMJDY is one of the biggest financial inclusion initiatives in the world under which the total number of accounts opened crossed 53 crore.

The JAM Trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) has given a boost to the DBT programme and expanded its coverage from partial to ubiquitous, the finance ministry said, and added the PMJDY scheme has done very good in rural/semi-urban areas of the country.

Of the total accounts opened under the scheme about 66.6 per cent accounts are opened in rural and semi-urban areas. Of the total 53.13 crore PMJDY accounts, 29.56 crore (55.6 per cent) belong to women account holders.

Today, 99.95 per cent of all inhabited villages have access to banking facilities within a 5-km radius through banking touch points (including bank branches, ATMs, banking correspondents (BCs), and Indian Post Payment Banks), the ministry said.

One of the major key feature of the PMJDY is that there are no account opening charges, no account maintenance charges, and no minimum balance charges.

Also, free RuPay debit card, with in-built accident insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh, and access to overdraft facility of up to Rs 10,000, are other major features of the scheme.

The underlying pillars of PMJDY namely, banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured and funding the unfunded — has made it possible to adopt a multi-stakeholders collaborative approach while leveraging technology for serving the unserved and underserved areas as well.

The JAM (Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile) pipeline created through account holders’ consent-based linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar and mobile numbers of the account holders, which is one of the important pillars of the financial inclusion ecosystem, has enabled instant DBT under various government welfare schemes to the eligible beneficiaries.

The advantage of the architecture created under the Financial Inclusion ecosystem came handy during the Covid-19 pandemic when it facilitated direct income support to farmers under PM-KISAN and transfer of ex-gratia payment to women PMJDY account holders under PM Garib Kalyan package in a seamless and time-bound manner.