News and pics: Rons Bantwal
Daijiworld Media Network- Mumbai
Mumbai, Sep 1: Union Minister for Power, Coal and New and Renewable Energy Sources, Piyush Goyal launched the the 'Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana – a National Mission on Financial Inclusion in the city, simultaneously with the national launch at New Delhi.
The primary objective of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is to provide bank accounts to every household in the country and make available basic banking services like cash withdrawal and deposit, money transfer, balance enquiry, RuPay Debit card facility and extending mobile banking facility.
Speaking on the occasion, Goyal said, "Financial inclusion has been the priority of the NDA government and has observed that extension of banking services to all households would promote savings and contribute to overall economic growth." He said, "By announcing the launch of Pradhan Manti Jan Dhan Yojana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given a ‘gift of empowerment’ to the poor of the country."
Goyal added that financial inclusion is not just the responsibility of the state or the bank managers. He said that it should be a people driven programme, with participation of every citizen. "Historically, middle class brings transformation in the society. It has now to take lead to inculcate banking habits among those who provide necessary services to it," the minister added.
Calling for citizen’s participation for making the scheme successful, he said, "Ask your maid servant, washerman or the driver to open a bank account and try to make payments to them through cheque and then imagine the multiplier effect, it would have!"
Launching the programme in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for an end to ‘financial untouchability.’ He said that it was the pro-poor initiative of his government to integrate every Indian citizen into the economic system. The PM also announced that those who join the scheme before January 26, 2015, would be eligible for an additional Rs 30,000 insurance cover over and above the Rs 1 lac accidental insurance cover provided by the PMJDY.
In a novel initiative, simultaneous launch functions were held in state capitals and other major centres, which were attended by union ministers, chief ministers, MPs and MLAs. PSU Banks had set up over 70,000 special counters to open more than one crore bank accounts on a single day, which is a record of sorts. In Maharashtra, Union Minister for Environment, Information and Broadcasting and Parliamentary Affairs, Prakash Javadekar launched the programme in Pune while Union Minister for Shipping, Surface Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari in Nagpur.
About Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has been conceived as a national mission for financial inclusion to be implemented in two phases. The first phase from August 2014–August 2015- the programme will focus on providing universal banking access, providing basic banking accounts with limited overdraft facility and RuPay Debit Card with an in-built insurance cover of Rs 1 lac and conducting financial literacy programmes.
In the second phase spanning August 2015–August 2018, the scheme will focus on creating Credit Guarantee Fund for coverage of defaults in overdraft accounts, micro-insurance and providing unorganized sector pension schemes like Swavalamban.
How the scheme will be implemented
All the six lac villages in India (40,000 in Maharashtra) will be mapped into Sub Service Area (SSAs) comprising 1000-1500 households.
SSAs, normally spread over three to four villages, shall be covered through a combination of banking outlets i.e. branch banking and branch-less banking. While branch banking includes the usual brick and mortar branches, branchless banking comprises fixed point Business Correspondents, who act as bank representatives to provide basic banking services. 7000 new branches will be opened, 20,000 new ATMs will be set up and an additional 50,000 Banking Correspondents will be recruited in the first phase to ensure proper implementation of the PM Jan Dhan Yojana scheme.
According to census in 2011, only 58.7% of households in India (68.9% in Maharashtra) had access to banking services. It is estimated that, out of 24.67 crore total households in the country, six crore households in rural areas and 1.5 crore households in urban areas need to be covered under the financial inclusion mission.
To ensure that the accounts opened by the people do not remain dormant, resulting in costs to the banking sector, there is a plan to channel all government benefits to the beneficiaries accounts and pushing the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme.
In order to achieve this plan, phase wise and state wise targets for banks have been drawn up for the period August 2014–August 2015. A web portal is being created for reporting/monitoring of progress of the scheme.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana is an improvement over the earlier Swabhiman financial inclusion scheme in that it covers both rural and urban areas and focuses on households rather than villages with certain population (2000).
It is a technology driven initiative that provides interoperability through RuPay Debit Card and is integrated with Direct Transfer of Benefits. Department of Telecom has been asked to ensure proper telecommunication connectivity in the country. 50,000 villages in India and 4,000 in Maharashtra are yet to be connected.
The scheme operates with simplified KYC (Know Your Customer) norms, which have since been notified by the Reserve Bank of India. It also provides for monitoring at the centre, state and district levels and grievance redressal at SLBC (State Level Banking Committee) level in respective states.
Bank of Maharashtra, Pune is the SLBC Convenor for the state of Maharashtra.