Jan Dhan Yojana’s social security feature has failed to take off

Monday, March 11, 2019

By Krishnanand Tripathi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s financial inclusion programme Jan Dhan Yojana has been a huge success, but its in-built social security feature has failed to take off. The insurance cover that comes with the Jan Dhan scheme remains a non-starter with only 9,566 claims paid from a meagre 12,260 applications.

There are more than 34.73 crore Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Account holders in the country and the number of people who received benefits under the inbuilt social security insurance schemes is abysmally low at less than 10,000.

Jan Dhan Yojana was launched in August 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi under a multi pronged strategy to combine financial inclusion with social security and several other services including direct benefit of transfers (DBT) and a overdraft facility. Jan Dhan scheme offers an in-built life cover of Rs 30,000 and another accidental insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh to RuPay debit card holders. Of the total claims made under Jan Dhan Yojana, 5,323 are related to life cover and 4,243 are related to accidental coverage claims.

Photo courtesy of Satish Krishnamurthy.

Source: Financial Express (link opens in a new window)

Categories
Finance
Tags
financial inclusion, insurance, public policy