PMJDY: 20% of accounts inoperative with Rs 12,779 crore funds, says MoS Finance

Nearly 20% of the 511.1 million bank accounts under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana remained inoperative as on December 6, the Rajya Sabha was informed on Tuesday. However, the percentage of inoperative PMJDY accounts is similar to the percentage of overall inoperative accounts in the banking sector, said Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Karad.  

Responding to a question on untraceable and inoperative PMJDY accounts, Karad further said that out of the total 103.4 million inoperative PMJDY accounts, 49.3 crore accounts belong to women. The deposited balance in the inoperative PMJDY accounts is around Rs 12,779 crore which is around 6.12% of the total deposited balance in PMJDY accounts.   

“This balance continues to earn interest at par with that applicable to the operative accounts and can be claimed and withdrawn by the depositors at any point of time after the account becomes operative again,” Karad further said.   

He also said that as a result of various initiatives, the percentage of inoperative accounts has come down from 40% in March 2017 to 20% in November 2023. “Banks are making concerted efforts to reduce the percentage of inoperative accounts and the progress is being regularly monitored by the government,” Karad said, adding that banks also organise camps at local level to create awareness about good banking habits.  

As per Reserve Bank of India guidelines, a savings as well as current account should be treated as inoperative or dormant, if there are no customer induced transactions in the account for over a period of two years.  

“The reasons for the account turning inoperative can be many and it has no direct co-relation to the account-holder being untraceable,” Karad said. Customers can re-activate their bank accounts at any time free of charge after completing the necessary KYC.   

PMJDY is a flagship scheme of the government to provide universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household. As per official data, a total of Rs 2,08,637.46 crore is deposited in beneficiary accounts under the scheme and 347.1 million RuPay cards have also been issued to beneficiaries. 

Also Read: Arvind Kejriwal will attend pre-planned Vipassana camp from Dec 19-30: Raghav Chadha on ED summons for Dec 21