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About a fifth of all accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana remain inoperative and more than half had a balance of less than Rs 1,000.
Of a total of 541.3 million accounts opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), 113.7 million accounts are non-operational accounts, as Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary informed the Rajya Sabha on December 4 on Tuesday. There are 336.8 million PMJDY accounts having a balance of less than Rs 1,000, as on October 30, it further said.
The minister responded to a question about the PMJDY’s inoperative accounts.
Launched in August 2014, the scheme is a flagship initiative of the government that aims to provide universal banking services to all unbanked households. “The PMJDY account is a type of basic savings bank deposit account,” Chaudhary said.
Meanwhile, replying to another question, the Ministry of State informed Rajya Sabha that Rs 85,718.14 crore has been approved and Rs 60,120.76 crore has been released to states under the Special Assistance Scheme to States for capital investments 2024-25. Under the scheme, the central government provided 50-year interest-free loans to the states.
States received Rs 1.10 lakh crore in FY24 under the scheme and Rs 81,195.35 crore in FY23. Meanwhile, Rs 14,185.78 crore was released to states in FY22 and Rs 11,830.29 crore in FY21.
“In October 2020, the Union Government introduced a ‘Special Assistance Scheme to States for Capital Expenditure’ considering the difficult fiscal environment faced by state governments due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Special assistance (loan) was provided to help states boost capital expenditure and improve productive capacity of the economy in times of risk aversion,” he further said.
