More variants coming on social security schemes: Arun Jaitley

The schemes are the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Atal Pension Yojana

The government will, over the coming years, launch variants of three ambitious social sector schemes to bring more people under these plans, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Monday.

The schemes are the  Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY).

Jaitley, speaking at an official meeting in the Parliament Annexe, also said the government was considering bringing all social security schemes under one roof, according to an official press release.

“As our economy is prospering, these schemes will be allotted more resources and there will be more variants with improvements,” Jaitley said, adding they were committed to the goal of universal social security.

Jaitley said so far, 78.4 million had registered under PMSBY, 27 million under PMJJBY and 46.9 million had joined APY.

At present, 11 per cent of the population is covered under pension schemes and only 20 per cent are insured. The government wishes to bring as many as possible under these, the minister said.

With regard to the financial inclusion initiative of the government, Jaitley said the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), was a success, 167.3 million accounts having been opened in a year, with total deposits of Rs 19,991 crore.

He said the government was subsequently encouraged to widen the approach to social security for all sections of society, by introducing micro insurance, micro pension and micro credit schemes.

Later, Hasmukh Adhia, the financial services secretary, made a presentation on implementation of these. Under the PMJDY, he said the number of zero balance accounts had come down from an initial 75 per cent to 52 per cent. As on July 8, about 148.6 million RuPay cards had been issued under the scheme to account holders.

Under PMJJBY, 114 claims were made till July 10 and 54 settled. Under the pension scheme, 46.9 million had subscribed and of those, 34.8 million had already got their Permanent Retirement Account Number, said Adhia, adding a corpus of Rs 14.9 crore had accumulated so far under the scheme.

On the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY), the secretary said it was aimed at augmenting the flow of funds to the micro finance sector. An overall disbursement target of Rs 1.22 lakh crore was set for banks and financial institutions for 2015-16. Till end-June, Rs 6,185 crore was dispersed by public sector banks and Rs 1,592 crore by regional rural banks under PMMY.