Jan Dhan Yojana crosses 75 mn accounts, completes target

Officials say debit cards, accident insurance cover will be rolled out to all account holders in a few weeks

Nearly three months after financial inclusion mission Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 29, the target of opening 75.16 million bank accounts for the un-banked has been met. This is a notable achievement as it comes two months ahead of the target of January 26, 2015.

However, as many as 75 per cent of the accounts thus opened, 56.64 million, do not have any cash balance. Also, only 58 per cent of the account holders, 43.3 million, have been provided with the RuPay debit card. (Read: Is Jan Dhan really a success?)

According to the latest data available with the finance ministry, State Bank of India tops the list with 13.4 million accounts opened across its branches till November 15 this year. Bank of Baroda, which opened 4.04 million accounts, came in second, closely followed by Canara Bank with 3.92 million bank accounts.

Among private lenders, HDFC Bank stood on top with 600,000 accounts followed by ICICI Bank that opened 490,000 accounts. Jammu & Kashmir Bank came next with 270,000 accounts and Axis Bank opened 190,000. Federal Bank opened 130,000 accounts as of November 15 this year.

According to experts, both the RuPay debit cards and the accident insurance will be rolled out to all 75 million account holders in the next few weeks.

Although the initial targets have been met, Jan Dhan Yojana will hold another mega account opening camp on November 29. In the earlier camp, which was held in August, about 18 million accounts were opened on a single day.

The scheme was announced by Modi in his Independence Day address on August 15, 2014. This is a national mission on financial inclusion encompassing an integrated approach to bring about comprehensive financial inclusion of all the households in the country.

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

This plan offers a RuPay debit card with in-built accident insurance cover of Rs 100,000. Under this scheme, upon opening a bank account, holders are eligible for an overdraft facility of Rs 2,000 each, which can be extended to Rs 5,000 based on credit and transaction history of account holders.

Further, those opening accounts before January 26, 2015, will get Rs 30,000 life insurance cover from Life Insurance Corporation of India.