Gap between PMJDY scheme beneficiaries and RuPay cards issued widens

RuPay, operated by the National Payments Corpo­ra­tion of India (NPCI), is India's homegrown card network

More than 38.2 million beneficiaries were added under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna (PMJDY) in a year (December 2019 to December 20­20), according to the website of the scheme. However, only 8.9 million additional RuPay cards were issued to beneficiaries during this period.

This comes at a time when the government has been pushing banks to focus more on RuPay cards and provide it as the first option to customers. 

According to the PMJDY website, benefits under PMJDY include one basic savings account for an unbanked person, where there is no need to maintain a minimum balance. Also, RuPay debit card