Launched in August 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has now emerged as the basis of direct transfer of cash subsidy to the bank account of the poor and underprivileged. Union finance ministry has claimed that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), the country’s financial inclusion initiative that was launched six years ago, has over 403.5 million accounts with overall deposits exceeding Rs 1.30 lakh crore.
“Today, six years ago, the PMJDY was launched with an ambitious aim of banking the unbanked. This initiative has been a game-changer, serving as the foundation for several poverty alleviation initiatives, benefitting crores of people,” PM Modi said.
The government is aiming to diversify the scheme for offering insurance coverage to PMJDY account holders. These account holders would be covered under PMJJBY [Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana] and PMSBY [Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana].
In a bid to promote digital payments, the government is planning to include RuPay debit card usage, among PMJDY account holders.
“Thanks to the PMJDY, the future of several families has become secure. A high proportion of beneficiaries are from rural areas and are women,” the PM said in another tweet.
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“It is important as it provides an avenue to the poor for bringing their savings into the formal financial system, an avenue to remit money to their families in villages besides taking them out of the clutches of the usurious money lenders,” said the Finance Ministry.
The PMJDY became an important instrument to provide relief to the poor under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package that was announced on March 26. The package under the scheme offered an amount of Rs 500 per month for a tenure of three months to women account holders.
The account holders could also get support of ‘Jan Dhan Darshak App’, a mobile application designed for locating banking touchpoints such as bank branches, ATMs and post offices.
