<div>Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), the national financial inclusion mission, in Delhi on August 28. He will also dedicate the mobile banking facility on the basic mobile phone to the nation on the occasion.<br /><br />PMJDY envisages comprehensive financial inclusion in two phases. The first phase (15 August,2014-14 August,2015) will cover universal access to banking facilities, provide basic banking accounts (with overdraft facility of Rs 5000 after six months and RuPay Debit card with inbuilt accident insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh and RuPay Kisan Card), and a massive financial literacy drive.<br /><br />The second phase (15 August 2015-15 August, 2018) will see the creation of a Credit Guarantee Fund for coverage of defaults in overdraft A/Cs and introduction of micro insurance and unorganized sector Pension schemes like Swavlamban. In addition, coverage of households in hilly, tribal and difficult areas would be carried out during this phase. Moreover, this phase would focus on coverage of remaining adults in the households and students.<br /><br />An exhibition on technology and financial literacy will also be organised as part of the launch function.<br /><br /><strong>The highlights of the scheme are:</strong><br /> </div><ul><li>All the rural and semi urban areas of the country are proposed to be mapped into Sub Service Areas (SSA) comprising 1,000-1,500 households with an average of 3-4 villages with relaxation in north-eastern and hilly states.</li><li>It is also proposed that looking at the viability of each centre of around 74,000 villages with a population of more than 2,000 which were covered by Business Correspondents (BCs) under the Swabhiman Campaign will be considered for conversion into full fledged brick mortar branches with staff strength of 1+1/1+2 in the next three years.</li><li>All the 6 lakh villages across the entire country are to be mapped according to the service area of each bank and will have at least one fixed point banking outlet catering to each SSA. It is proposed that the SSAs shall be covered through a combination of banking outlets i.e branch banking and branch less banking. Branch banking means traditional brick & mortar branches. Branchless banking comprises of fixed point BCs, who act as representative of bank to provide basic banking services.</li><li>The implementation strategy of the plan is to utilise the existing banking infrastructure as well as expand it to cover all households. While the existing banking network would be fully geared up to open bank accounts of the uncovered households in both rural and urban areas, the banking sector would also be expanding itself to set up an additional 50,000 Business correspondents (BCs), more than 7,000 branches and more than 20,000 new ATMs in the first phase.</li><li> The comprehensive plan is necessary considering the learnings from the past where a large number of accounts opened remained dormant, resulting in costs incurred by banks and no benefits to the beneficiaries. The plan, therefore, proposes to channel all government benefits (from centre/state/local body) to the beneficiaries to such accounts and pushing the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme of the Union Government including restarting the DBT in LPG scheme. MGNREGS sponsored by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD, GoI) is also likely to be included in Direct Benefit Transfer scheme.</li><li>Keeping the stiff targets in mind, in the first phase, the plan would focus on first three pillars starting from 15th August, 2014.</li><li>The target for setting up additional 50,000 BCs is quite challenging given the constraints of telecom connectivity. In order to achieve this plan, phase-wise and state-wise targets for banks have been set up in the first phase.</li><li>In order to achieve a “demand” side pull effect, it would be essential that there is branding and awareness of the BC model for providing basic banking services, banking products are available at BC outlets along with RuPay Cards. A media plan is also being worked out iconsultation with banks.</li><li>Further, a project management consultant/group would be engaged to help the department implement the plan.</li><li>It is proposed to launch the programme simultaneously at national level in Delhi, at every state capital as well as district headquarters.</li><li>A web-portal would be created for reporting/monitoring of progress.</li><li>Roles of various stakeholders like other departments of the central government, state governments, RBI, NABARD, NPCI and others have been indicated.</li><li>Gram Dak Sewaks in rural areas are proposed as BCs for Banks.</li><li>The Department of Telecom has been requested to ensure that problems of poor and no connectivity are resolved. They have informed that of the 5.93 lakh inhabited villages in the country (2011 census) only about 50,000 villages lack telecom connectivity.</li></ul><div><br /> </div>
