The Minister also mentioned that it was encouraging that 67% of the accounts were opened in rural or semi-urban areas and 55% of the accounts were opened by women.

“The consent-based pipeline created by linking Jan Dhan-Mobile-Adhaar has been one of the key pillars of the financial inclusion ecosystem. It has enabled fast, seamless and transparent transfer of government welfare payments to eligible recipients and promoted digital payments,” says Sitharaman.

The scheme provides a basic bank account to any unbanked adult. No balance is required and no fees are charged for this account. A free RuPay debit card with an inbuilt accident insurance of Rs 200,000 is also provided to encourage digital transactions. PMJDY account holders are also eligible for an overdraft facility of up to Rs 10,000 to cover emergency needs.

The total deposit balances in PMJDY accounts are Rs 2,312,360,000 crore. In August 2024, deposits increased by 15 times and accounts by 3.6 times over August 2015, according to the Finance Ministry.

“With the issuance of over 36.06 crore RuPay debit cards under PMJDY, installation of 89.67 lakh PoS/mPoS machines and introduction of mobile payment systems like UPI, the total number of digital transactions has increased from 2,338 crore in FY18-19 to 16,443 crore in FY23-24. The total number of UPI financial transactions has increased from 535 crore in FY2018-19 to 13,113 crore in FY2023-24. Similarly, the total number of RuPay card transactions at PoS and e-commerce has increased from 67 crore in FY2017-18 to 96.78 crore in FY2023-24,” a ministry release said.