New Delhi: PM Narendra Modi today launched Jan Dhan Yojana, a mega financial inclusion plan under which bank accounts and RuPay debit cards with inbuilt insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh will be provided to crores of persons with no access to formal banking facilities.
The scheme seeks to provide two accounts to 7.5 crore identified households by August 2018. Addressing the function, Finance minister Arun Jaitley said that over 10 crore people have no bank account and thus they have no savings.
Thanking the ministries in the Government for their efforts in making this project successful, Jaitley said that the government will strive to cover 7.2 crore families by February 2015.
The first phase of the mission, starting this month, would end in August next year. The second phase will start from 2015 till 2018, covering aspects such as micro insurance and pension schemes like ‘Swavalamban’.
Some of the Phase II activities would also be carried out in Phase I. In addition, the coverage of households in hilly, tribal and difficult areas would be carried out.
While the existing banking network would be geared up to open bank accounts of the uncovered households in both rural and urban areas, the banking sector would be expanding itself to set up an additional 50,000 Business correspondents, more than 7,000 branches and more than 20,000 new ATMs in the first phase, a release said.
Bureau Report
Leave a Reply