The number of bank accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has crossed the 55 crore mark, with “most of these accounts belonging to people who had never even seen the door of a bank,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Sunday.
In a post on X, the Finance Minister said, “With the programme completing 10 years & these accounts requiring KYCs, I urged the banks to start an initiative of reaching out to people for the same. Since 1st July 2025, banks have covered nearly 1 Lakh Gram Panchayats under this initiative.”
She also urged all Jan Dhan account holders to come forward and complete their KYC process at the outreach camps.
According to RBI data, 56% of Jan Dhan accounts belong to women, and total deposits under the scheme have surpassed ₹2.5 lakh crore as of May 21.
At a recent seminar on financial inclusion, RBI Deputy Governor M. Rajeshwar Rao termed the launch of PMJDY a “watershed moment” for India. He highlighted that the Jan Dhan Yojana -Aadhaar – Mobile (JAM) Trinity has provided a quantum leap in the country’s efforts to ensure universal access to banking services, making it the world’s largest financial inclusion programme.
Calling PMJDY one of the biggest financial inclusion initiatives globally, FM Sitharaman said that the government has set a target of opening three crore more accounts this year.
The average bank balance per account has risen from ₹1,065 in March 2015 to ₹4,352 now, with around 80% of accounts active, according to official data.
As many as 66.6% of Jan Dhan accounts have been opened in rural and semi-urban areas, while 29.56 crore accounts belong to women.
The scheme has played a critical role in direct benefit transfers (DBT), including MGNREGA wages, Ujjwala Scheme subsidies, and financial assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Finance Ministry noted.
Today, 99.95% of all inhabited villages have access to banking facilities within a 5-km radius through bank branches, ATMs, banking correspondents (BCs), and India Post Payment Banks, the statement added.
When the Modi government first came to power 11 years ago, it had set a target of providing banking and financial services to every citizen. To achieve this, zero-balance bank accounts were opened under the PMJDY scheme launched on August 28, 2014.
(IANS)
