BHUBANESWAR: All households of the state barring a few in tribal-dominated Malkangiri district have been brought under the formal banking system through opening of savings accounts under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), one of the biggest financial inclusion initiative launched on August 28, 2014.
On completion of nine years of the scheme, over two crore beneficiaries (20,479,422) have been brought into the ambit of banking system with a deposit of Rs 9,197.52 crore as on August 16, 2023. As many as 14,799,272 beneficiaries have been issued RuPay cards. As per the 2011 census report, there were more than 3,800 villages in the state, where not a single household was availing banking facility and over 4,900 villages where percentage of households having bank accounts were meagre, around 0.1 to 9.9 per cent.
Similarly, availability of banking facility in 10,801 villages was within the range of 10 to 29 pc and in 10,575 villages, household having bank accounts was within 49.9 pc. Only 1,300 villages of the state had 100 pc coverage with all households having bank accounts. In the first year of launching of the scheme, over 40 lakh accounts were opened of which more than 60 pc accounts are zero balance accounts.
In 2022-23, the state government had given a target to all the banks operating in the state to open 11 lakh PMJDY accounts against which 14,27,103 accounts were opened with an achievement of 129.74 pc of the target.
As per the progress report of PMJDY, 74,20,665 out of a total of 74,32,140 households of the state have been covered under financial inclusion programme which is 99.85 pc. The household coverage in Malkangiri is 87.74 pc.
While the objective of the scheme was to provide access to banking services, the account holder is covered under accident insurance up to `1 lakh and will enjoy overdraft facility to draw up to `10,000 at the time of need.