NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Thursday, November 6, 2014

NEW DELHI: The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has so far managed to bring over Rs 5,000 crore into the formal banking system, as close to seven crore account holders have started depositing cash into their bank accounts. A large part of this money was hitherto kept at home, with little or no productive use.

Latest data collated by the finance ministry showed that on November 3, 6.98 crore bank accounts had been opened across the country, with Rs 5,300 crore parked in them. Just a tad under 4 crore RuPay cards had been issued to these account holders, with the remaining expected to get the ATM card over the next few weeks, officials said.

At the current pace, it’s a matter of days before bank employees help the government scale the target of opening 7.5 crore bank accounts under the financial inclusion scheme launched on August 29. The government was looking to achieve the target before January 26, 2015, well ahead of the earlier schedule of August 15, 2015. But with the target within reach, the finance ministry is now looking at doubling the target to open 15 crore accounts, said an official.