PM Modi launches Jan Dhan Yojana, targets 1.5 cr bank accounts on Day 1

Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the government’s ambitious financial inclusion scheme Jan Dhan Yojana today and said it would help remove the ‘financial untouchability’ that the poor of the country have had to suffer since Independence.

After officially launching the scheme, Modi noted that a number of records were being broken by the scheme for various reasons.

“In the history of the insurance sector, there may not have been so many accident insurances issued in a day,” Modi said.

Modi announced an additional initiative during the launch of the scheme.

“Whoever opens bank accounts by 26 January 2015 will get an additional Rs 30,000 as life insurance above the Rs 1 lakh provided as accident insurance,” Modi said.

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While briefly mentioning the failed goals of nationalising banks in 1969, Modi noted on how little the country had progressed when it came to financial inclusion.

“After 68 years of Independence, not even 68 percent of population has access to these facilities. One feels the objective behind the nationalisation of banks has failed,” he said.

Harking back to Mahatma Gandhi and his quest to abolish social untouchability, Modi likened the Jan Dhan Yojana to an attempt at banishing ‘financial untouchability’ from the country.

“We must remove financial untouchability to free India from poverty,” the prime minister said.

“In villages even now women in rural areas struggle to save. But if man of the house has a vice then she has to worry about hiding it. With this scheme women now have a place to save their money,” he said.

The prime minister spoke of freeing the poor of the ‘vicious cycle’ that is taking loans from money lenders.

“The moment a man takes a loan from a moneylender he heads towards financial ruin. It can destroy his family,” Modi observed.

While talking about the RuPay card, Modi said that Indians should take pride and work towards bringing the indigenous card on par with global cards like Visa and Mastercard in terms of credibility.

“This scheme will help bridge the gap between the rich and the poor, allowing the poor to feel equal to the rich with the use of this card,” he said.

The prime minister said that as per Indian scriptures say it’s the state’s responsibility to ensure financial inclusion and the various facets of the Jan Dhan Yoajan scheme will also help the government battle corruption by linking welfare schemes to bank accounts allocated under this scheme.

Modi also said that the achievement of successfully launching the Jan Dhan Yojana will boost the confidence of not only employees of the banking sector but of those across government departments and will help the Centre achieve any future schemes planned on a mission mode.

The mandate of the scheme, first announced in the prime minister’s Independence Day speech, is to provide basic banking facilities to the country’s poor. As part of the program, sections of the population so far excluded from the banking sector will be able to open basic savings accounts, have access to debit cards, credit remittance facilities, insurance, pension and a host of other services.

Mobile banking facilities will also be available.Now, the poor would be able to do normal bank transactions through non-smart phone as well because of introduction of new technology introduced by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI). A person can transfer funds, check balance through a normal phone. However, this facility was limited only to smart phones so far.

As part of the scheme, citizens will get a RuPay card, a bank account, and Rs 1 lakh in accident insurance.

To mark the launch of the Jan Dhan Yojana, the central government, together with various public sector banks is hosting 77,852 camps to educate the masses on various banking procedures, said Financial Minister Arun Jaitley.

The scheme was simultaneously launched at multiple places by 20 Chief Ministers, several Union Ministers, including Information Minister Prakash Javadekar at Pune, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad at Chennai, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj at Bhopal, Home Minister Rajnath Singh at Lucknow and HRD Minister Smriti Irani at Surat.

“We were hoping to reach 1 crore people today but statistics indicate we will reach 1.5 crore people,” Jaitley said. He also announced that the government is targetting reaching 7.5 crore people by 26 January, 2015.