Deposit growth falls; private banks remain laggards.
The no-frills Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) bank accounts, with an accumulated Rs 2.03 trillion cash balance, continues to rise steadily nine years after its launch. As many as 35.9 million new PMJDY accounts were opened in FY23 compared with 28.6 million in FY22 and 38.7 million in FY21. With nearly 10 million new accounts opened in the first four months of FY24, the cumulative PMJDY accounts stood at 496.3 million by end-July.
In terms of cash deposits, however, the incremental deposits were just around Rs 4,000 crore so far in the current fiscal, taking the total to Rs 2.03 trillion as on August 2, 2023, from Rs 1.99 trillion on March 31, 2023. In FY23, fresh accretion in PMJDY accounts was a record Rs 50,000 crore.
Most of the PMJDY accounts are with the public sector banks that have steered the financial inclusion drive. The number of PMJDY accounts opened by PSBs rose from 332.62 million in March 2021 to 385.89 million in May 2023, an increase of 16%. The government-managed Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) have a 21% increase in their PMJDY accounts to around 91 million in May 2023 from 71 million in March 2021.
However, such accounts were just 14.07 million with private sector banks, up 12% between March 2021 and May 2023.
PMJDY was launched on 28th August 2014 to provide universal banking services by opening a zero-balance bank account for every unbanked household. The main features of the scheme include one basic savings bank deposit (BSBD) account to every unbanked adult, an overdraft (OD) limit of Rs 10,000 and a free RuPay debit card with inbuilt accident insurance cover of up to Rs 2,00,000.
The JAM Trinity – Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, mobile – has stood the government in good stead in implementing large-scale, technology-enabled and real-time direct benefit transfers (DBTs) to improve the welfare of the low-income category people, especially during Covid.
Transfer of assorted subsidies and sops to the beneficiaries through DBT resulted in savings of Rs 2.73 trillion between FY15 and FY22.
Source:financialexpress.com