GS Paper - III

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) completed 10 years on 28 August 2024. The PMJDY was launched on 28 August 2014, as a national mission for financial inclusion.

Over the last decade, 53.13 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, with 29.56 crore women beneficiaries, more than the population of the European Union, and almost the same as the population of the United States respectively, the government said.

I-Day announcement

• The PMJDY was one of the early initiatives of the Modi government. The Prime Minister announced the scheme in his first Independence Day address on 15 August 2014.
• This yojana will open the window. …An account holder under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana will be given a debit card.
• An insurance of one lakh rupees will be guaranteed with that debit card for each poor family.

Features of the Jan Dhan Yojana

• The scheme was launched on 28 August 2024. Banks organised 77,892 camps around the country, and opened about 1.8 crore accounts.
• Guinness World Records recognised the achievement: “The most bank accounts opened in 1 week as part of a financial inclusion campaign is 18,096,130 and was achieved by Department of Financial Services, Government of India from 23 to 29 August 2014.”
• The launch of PMJDY provided an unprecedented boost to the government’s campaign for financial inclusion, at a scale never seen before.
• Earlier governments too, had taken initiatives for financial inclusion — for instance, the previous UPA government began a scheme of no-frills bank accounts for people who did not have an account — but they had failed to gain traction.
• The foremost objective of the PMJDY was to open a Basic Savings Bank Account for unbanked individuals.
• There was no requirement to maintain any minimum balance in PMJDY accounts, and these accounts earned interest on deposits like regular accounts.
• PMJDY account-holders were given RuPay debit cards.
• An accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh was available with RuPay cards issued to PMJDY account holders. The cover was enhanced to Rs 2 lakh for new PMJDY accounts opened after August 28, 2018.
• Eligible PMJDY account holders can avail overdraft (OD) facility up to Rs 10,000.
• PMJDY accounts are also eligible for Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Atal Pension Yojana (APY), and the Micro Units Development & Refinance Agency Bank (MUDRA) scheme.

Impact of Jan Dhan Yojana

• The scheme, which is one of the components of the JAM trinity of PMJDY, Aadhaar, and mobile, has had a transformative impact on the financial and banking sectors of the economy.
• First, the opening of more than half a billion bank accounts has fuelled demand for banking services, encouraging commercial banks to expand their infrastructure in recent years.
• The number of ATMs has increased by 30 per cent from 1,66,894 at the end of June 2014 to 2,16,914 in 2024.
• The number of Points of Sale (POS) has increased from 10.88 lakh to 89.67 lakh during the last 10 years.
• Second, the rollout of payment solutions such as UPI — launched two years after the PMJDY — has eased and increased banking transactions.
• Third, PMJDY accounts have become the bedrock of the government’s DBT architecture.