Jan Dhan bank accounts cross 5 crore-mark, banks collect over Rs 3500 crore

Banks have opened a whopping five crore accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana till September 25 and collected over Rs 3,500 crore in deposits, a top Finance Ministry official said in Mumbai on Monday.

The banking system, with state-run banks taking the lead, has opened over 5 crore accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana as of September 25 and the deposits collected through the scheme have crossed Rs 3,500 crore, Financial Services Secretary GS Sandhu told the annual meeting of the Indo-American Chamber.

The average deposit per account through the scheme is Rs 800-900, he said.

Giving a major push to the Aadhaar scheme, Sandhu said, all these accounts will be seeded to the Aadhaar number and will have biometrics to avoid duplication.

The Jan Dhan Yojana was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his maiden Independence Day address and was formally launched on August 28.

On the inagural day itself, banks had opened over 1.5 crore accounts.

The government has set a target to open 7.5 crore such no-frills accounts by Republic Day 2015.

Each of these accounts comes with an overdraft facility of Rs 5,000 and an accident cover worth Rs 1 lakh, and are linked only to the RuPay debit cards.