New Delhi. The number of deposits in bank accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojana has crossed Rs 1.5 lakh crore. The government had started this scheme seven and a half years ago. According to the latest data of the Finance Ministry, the number of accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has reached 44.23 crore. The deposits in these accounts have exceeded Rs 1.5 lakh crore.
The scheme, which promotes financial inclusion, completed seven years of implementation in August last year. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the launch of Jan Dhan Yojana in his Independence Day address in 2014. According to the finance ministry data, out of the total 44.23 crore Jan Dhan accounts, 349 crore accounts are in public sector banks and 8.05 crore accounts are in regional rural banks. The remaining 1.28 crore accounts have been opened in private sector banks. Apart from this, RuPay cards have been issued to 31.28 crore beneficiaries of PMJDY. It is worth mentioning here that over time the number and usage of RuPay cards has increased.
In the first year of this scheme, 17.90 crore accounts were opened. The balance or balance in Jan Dhan accounts may change on a daily basis depending on the transactions carried out by an account holder. Someday the ‘balance’ in the account may also come down to zero. The government had last month informed Parliament that as on December 8, 2021, the number of accounts with zero balance or balance in Jan Dhan accounts stood at 3.65 crore. This comes to 8.3 per cent of the total Jan Dhan accounts. As per the data, 29.54 crore Jan Dhan accounts are in rural and semi-urban bank branches. As on December 29, 2021, out of the total Jan Dhan account holders, 24.61 crore were women.