Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana: History and Present Impact

Abstract

Pradhan Mantri Jan –Dhan Yojana was launched on 28 august 2014 in India, as a concept of Financial Inclusion. The Main objective was to connect maximum people to banks and to provide them with financial literacy to get maximum benefit out of their small savings. This schemes was considered as new foundation stone for financial inclusion. PMJDY was launched with an aim to include financial excluded people into the development mainstream. This scheme was a huge success in rural areas. It was mostly dependent on public sector banks as they are having good reach in rural areas. PMJDY is being run by Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. On the inauguration day of PMJDY, 15 million bank accounts were opened. This scheme is helpful for the people having low income as they can easily open bank account and can get benefit of banking services. PMJDY bank account holders are also provided with RuPay Debit card which can be used for Payment and purchase. The Guinness Book of World Records recognised this achievement, stating: “The Most bank account opened in one week as a part of the financial inclusion campaign 1,80,96,130 was achieved by the Government of India from August 23 to 28, 2014.” The slogan of PMJDY is “Mera Khaata, Bhagya Vidhata”. Former union Finance minister Late Mr. Arun Jaitley said that the PMJDY is a game changer for the economy as it has provided the platform for Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) which, in turn, will help in plugging leakages is subsidies and thereby provide savings to the exchequer. This paper is exploring the benefits of PMJDY and the progress of PMJDY till April 2023.