Pmjdy is 11 years with 560 million accounts, £ 2,68 trillion deposits

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has facilitated the 560m bank accounts with deposits of £ 2.68 trillion over the past 11 years, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Thursday. In her message in celebration of the financial inclusion initiative, she noted that PMJDy was one of the most important channels for providing benefits under direct benefits (DBT), while also providing credit facilities, social security and savings and investments. Apart from raising the account and the deposit base, Sitharaman said the program also promoted the adoption of digital transactions by issuing more than 380 million free rupay cards. While the amount of digital transactions increased from 23.38 billion in 2018-19 to 221.98 billion in 2024-25, the total number of UPI transactions in the same period rose to 185.87 billion from 5.35 billion. The total number of Rupay card transactions at outlets and e-commerce sites also rose to 938.5 million from 670 million in 2017-18, a statement from the finance ministry. “It is noteworthy that 67% of accounts are opened in rural or semi-urban areas, and 56% are opened by women, indicating the underprivileged individuals in distant areas of the country were brought into the formal financial sector,” Sitharaman said. She said that PMJDy was one of the most important channels for delivering benefits under different schemes using direct advantage transfer (DBT), credit facilities, social security and improving savings and investments. “Financial inclusion is an important driver of economic growth and development. Universal access to bank accounts enables and marginalized the poor to fully participate in the formal economy and take advantage of its opportunities,” Sitharaman said. The PMJJDy, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 28, 2014, ensures that every unintentional adult has access to a basic bank account, with no balance requirements and no maintenance costs. Each account has a free rupay debit card that offers an £ 2 -lakh accident insurance coverage, which encourages digital transactions and financial security. Account holders are also eligible for an overdraft facility of up to £ 10,000, which offers a safety net during emergencies. The Jan-Dhan Baadhaar-Mobile (JAM) Trinity, with the PMJDy at its core, has also proven to be a distracting mechanism for subsidy delivery. Through Jam, the government transferred welfare benefits directly into the bank accounts of the underprivileged, which eliminated intermediaries and delays. During 2024-25, the government credited a total of £ 6.9 trillion in bank accounts under different DBT schemes, according to a statement from the finance ministry. The average deposit per account stood at £ 4,768 (from August 13), with 3.7x compared to August 2015m, the statement added. “In his 2021 Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister announced that every household should have a bank account and that every adult should have insurance and pension coverage. With the ongoing efforts in this direction by various saturation drivers performed across the country, we reached an almost saturation in the bank accounts, and there was an ongoing increase in insurance,” -Finer of State of State for Finance Pankaj Chauthary said.