Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana

January 21, 2015 January 21, 2015

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) or National Mission for Financial Inclusion was launched on 28 August 2014 to ensure affordable access to financial services viz. Bank accounts, remittance, credit, insurance and pension.

Objectives

This scheme was launched to provide basic banking accounts to 7.5 crore unbanked people with RuPay debit card and overdraft facility (after six months).

Facilities

Thus the scheme provided:

A bank account with no minimum balance; and interests on deposits
Debit cards
Accidental Insurance Cover of Rs. 1 Lakh; life cover of Rs.30000/- payable on death of beneficiary.
Overdraft facility up to Rs.5000/- on satisfactory operation of 6 months.
Easy transfer of money across India.
Transfer of benefits under DBT in these accounts.
Access to pension and insurance products.

PMJDY and Supply Side Approach to Financial Inclusion

The scheme was based on a supply side model by improving the delivery systems. Though these efforts did not make success in past, the government’s campaigning resulted in success of this scheme. The new scheme has tried to include each of them by bringing various facilities under one umbrella.

Mission Mode and 6 Pillars of PMJDY

PMJDY to be executed in the Mission Mode, envisages provision of affordable financial services to all citizens within a reasonable distance. It comprises of the following six pillars:

A. Universal access to banking facilities

Mapping of each district into Sub Service Area (SSA) catering to 1000-1500 households in a manner that every habitation has access to banking services within a th reasonable distance say 5 km by 14 August, 2015. Coverage of parts of J&K, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, North East and the Left Wing Extremism affected districts which have telecom connectivity and infrastructure constraints would spill over to the Phase II of the program (15 August, 2015 to 15 August, 2018)

B. Providing Basic Banking Accounts with overdraft facility and RuPay Debit card to all households

The effort would be to first cover all uncovered households with banking facilities by August, 2015, by opening basic bank accounts. Account holder would be provided a RuPay Debit Card. Facility of an overdraft to every basic banking account holder would be considered after satisfactory operation / credit history of six months.

C. Financial Literacy Programme

Financial literacy would be an integral part of the Mission in order to let the beneficiaries make best use of the financial services being made available to them.