Giving a boost to the Centre’s financial inclusion agenda, Kerala and Goa have become first states in the country with every household having at least one bank account.
“Kerala was declared as 100 per cent saturated State (in terms of coverage of all households with at least one bank account) on November 11,” the Finance Ministry said in a statement.
In addition, Goa, Chandigarh, Puducherry and Lakshadweep and three districts of Gujarat -Porbandar, Mehasana, Gandhi Nagar, have also covered all households under PMJDY with at least one bank account, it said.
As on November 10, 7.24 crore accounts have been opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) of which 4.29 crore in rural and 2.95 crore are in urban areas. RuPay Cards have been issued in case of 3.97 crore accounts.
Recently, Financial Services Secretary Hasmukh Adhia reviewed the progress in implementation of PMJDY with state level banking committees’ conveners of all the states.
During the meeting, banks were asked to undertake Information and Education Campaign (IEC) to disseminate information and awareness among the masses.
Department of Financial Services is regularly emphasising the early issuance of RuPay Debit Cards, e-KYC based account opening, Aadhaar seeding, financial literacy and the progress in survey made.
The statement said, 83 per cent of the survey work has been completed and banks have been asked to complete the remaining work by November 30. As per the initial results on an average about 80 per cent of the households surveyed have now got at least one bank account.
A reward scheme has also been put in place to incentivise the bankers.
Banks have been asked to be in preparedness for modified direct benefit transfer for LPG (DBTL) Scheme proposed to be launched on November 15. The DBTL scheme will be re-launched in five districts - Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Ludhiana, Barnala and Faridkot - in the first phase of the re-launch.
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