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Union financial services secretary Hasmukh Adhia said after the Jan Dhan Yojana, the focus would be on providing insurance to every household in the country.
The finance minister in the Union Budget had said two new insurance schemes for lower income groups would be launched, a Suraksha Bima Yojana accident insurance scheme of Rs 2 lakh sum assured, with a premium of only Rs 12 a year, and a Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana, with a life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh for an annual premium of Rs 330.
At the Commencement Day Annual Lecture of Exim Bank here, Adhia said the two schemes would enable mass spread. He noted no subsidy was being provided for either. “It is the sheer volume of the number of people expected to be covered that has brought down the cost (premium). There is no separate budgetary allocation for it and we would look into the marketing of these schemes,” he added.
Adhia said these two schemes and the Atal Pension Scheme would be available for all households. On setting up of the proposed Mudra Bank, he said it would create a systemic architecture to fund micro enterprises. Quoting official data, he said micro enterprises’ average borrowing was only Rs 17,000.
“The Mudra Bank will help them have access to funding for small amounts, for instance Rs 2 lakh,” he said. Such enterprises had a total estimated capital of Rs 11 lakh crore, of which only five to 10 per cent came from formal financial systems.
Creating good institutional architecture for ease of doing business, moulding the education system to skill training and improving of productivity across sectors were some challenges for policy makers, he said.
