7.1 cr new bank accounts have been opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana
19 Nov, 2014Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is national mission for financial inclusion with a focus on coverage of households. It has been launched to ensure access to financial services, namely, banking and savings and deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance, pension in an affordable manner. It permits an overdraft facility of upto Rs 5,000 to one account holder of PMJDY per household after six months of satisfactory conduct of the account.
Reply to an application filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, nearly Rs 5,400 crore have been deposited in banks in more than seven crore bank accounts opened out of which 74% accounts are with nil (zero) balance. The data provided has been updated till November 7, 2014.
In the reply to provided to RTI activist Subhash Agrawal, the Department of Financial Services has informed that a total of 7.1 crore bank accounts have been opened with the total balance in these accounts amounting to Rs 5,482 crore. Most of these accounts, over 4.2 crore, have been opened in rural areas, while 2.9 crore have been opened in the urban areas. The number of accounts with zero balance number 5.3 crores.
The State Bank of India has the highest number of accounts (1.2 crore new accounts) followed by Bank of Baroda (38 lakh accounts) and Canara Bank with (37 lakh accounts).