All Jan Dhan bank accounts be linked to Aadhaar: PM

He further asked bankers to speed up the process and redouble efforts on financial literacy

All Jan Dhan bank accounts should be linked to Aadhaar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said today while asking bankers to speed up this process and redouble efforts on financial literacy.

He wrote an email to all bankers to appreciate their "exceptional work" done to implement the Jan Dhan Yojana and said 99.74% of all households in the country have been covered, surpassing the target.

The government will ensure that many more schemes utilise the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) platform, he said.

"It gives me great pleasure to have seen the exceptional work done by you all in ensuring the success of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. The target set for opening bank accounts for all households has been surpassed well ahead of the target date of 26 January, 2015," he said in the email.

"By opening 11.5 crore new accounts in a very short span, we have achieved a coverage of 99.74% of all households in the country. I congratulate you for your extraordinary efforts," the Prime Minister wrote.

Contending that the bankers had proved sceptics wrong, he said it should motivate them further.

"We need to redouble efforts on financial literacy. Aadhaar seeding needs to improve further. Bank Mitras need to be enabled to carry out RuPay card and Aadhaar enabled transactions in villages itself," he told the bankers.

"I want you to work to ensure that each account holder enrols for Aadhaar and seeds it in the bank account. This needs to be done for all accounts. I am sure you will do this seeding with the same zeal you showed in driving bank account opening," he added.