NATIONAL MISSION FOR FINANCIAL INCLUSION

ChinmayaIAS Academy - Current Affairs August 30, 2021 GS, GS3 Leave a comment 335 Views

Recently, the government has asked the banks to improve access of account holders in the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) scheme to micro-credit and micro investment products, like flexi-recurring schemes.
PMJDY – National Mission for Financial Inclusion has completed seven years of successful implementation.

Important points:

Ensuring access to various financial services to the excluded sections i.e. weaker sections & low income groups at an affordable cost and using the technology for the same.

Six Pillars of the Scheme:

Universal Access to Banking Services – Branch and Banking Correspondents.
Accounts opened are online accounts in the core banking system of banks.
Focus has shifted from ‘Every Household’ to Every Unbanked Adult’.
Basic Savings Bank Accounts with OverDraft (OD) Facility of Rs. 10,000/- to every household.
Financial Literacy Program– Promoting savings, use of ATMs, using basic mobile phones for banking, etc.
Interoperability through RuPay debit card or Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS).
Creation of Credit Guarantee Fund – To provide banks some guarantee against defaults.
Insurance – Free accidental insurance cover on RuPay cards increased from Rs. 1 lakh to Rs. 2 lakh for PMJDY accounts opened after August 2018.

The number of accounts rose to 43.04 crore in August 2021 from 17.9 crore in August 2015.

Of this, 55.47% Jan Dhan account holders are women and 66.69% holders are in rural and semi-urban areas.
The deposits have shot up to Rs. 1.46 lakh crore from Rs. 22,901 crore during 2015-2021.
As per extant Reserve Bank of India guidelines, a PMJDY account is treated as inoperative if there are no customer induced transactions in the account for over a period of two years.
In August 2021, out of total 43.04 crore PMJDY accounts, 36.86 crore (85.6%) were operative.
Continuous increase in percentage of operative accounts is an indication that more and more of these accounts are being used by customers on a regular basis.

Way Forward

There must be an endeavour to ensure coverage of PMJDY account holders under micro insurance schemes.
Eligible PMJDY account holders will be sought to be covered under Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY).
Promotion of digital payments including RuPay debit card usage amongst PMJDY account holders through creation of acceptance infrastructure across India.

SOURCE: THE HINDU,THE ECONOMIC TIMES,MINT

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