Prime Minister launched Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 August 2014 launched Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. The Yojana is a mega financial inclusion plan.  Under the yojana bank accounts and RuPay debit cards with inbuilt insurance cover of 1 lakh rupees will be provided to crores of persons with no access to formal banking facilities.

The primary aim of the Jan Dhan Yojana is to bring poor financially excluded people into the banking system by providing them bank accounts and debit cards.

Target of Yojana

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has set an ambitious target of bringing in more than 7.5 crore un-banked families into India’s banking system by opening more than 15 crore bank accounts at the rate of two bank accounts per household by 15 August 2015.

The remaining hilly areas and the other 75 naxalite affected districts will be covered under the Yojana by the end of August 2016.

Name of Yojana

The name Jan Dhan was chosen through an online competition on the MyGov Platform and received more than 6000 suggestion from Indian citizens.

Slogan

The slogan for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan mission is Mera Khata – Bhagya Vidhaata.

Coverage of Yojana

The scheme will cover both urban and rural areas of India and all bank accounts opened will be linked to a debit card which would be issued under the RuPay scheme. (Rupay is India’s own unique domestic card network owned by National Payments Corporation of India and has been created as an alternative to Visa and Mastercard.)

Benefits under Yojana

Every individual who open a bank account becomes eligible to receive an accident insurance cover of up-to 1 Lakh rupees for his entire family.

Moreover, an additional 30000 rupees life insurance cover will be provided for those opening bank accounts before 26 January 2015.

Once the bank account became active for 6 months and being linked to account holders Aadhar identity, they would become eligible for an overdraft of up to 2500 rupees, which would further be enhanced by the bank to 5000 rupees over time.

The Jan Dhan Yojana also seeks to provide incentives to business and banking correspondents. The banking correspondents act as link for the last mile between savings account holders and the bank by fixing a minimum monthly remuneration of 5000 rupees.

The long term vision of the Jan Dhan Yojana is to lay the foundation of a cashless economy and is complementary to the Digital India Scheme.