AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808 Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana as an Instrument of Financial Inclusion: A Review Subha Kumar Das Department of Commerce, Gauhati University
[email protected] Abstract - Financial inclusion means the delivery of financial services at an affordable cost to all sections of the society which are disadvantaged and those who fall in the low income segments of the society. One of the main reasons of backwardness of the different sections of our society can be attributed to the lack of access to basic financial systems. The formal financial sectors have not been able to reach the poorer sections of the society especially in the villages. The Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana is a step taken forward towards the financial inclusion program and is an effort to bring the unbanked sections of our society directly under the formal banking system.This paper highlights the process through which this scheme has been implemented and to what extent it has been able to cover the targeted sections in India. This paper also tries to highlight the implications of this scheme and the challenges and issues regarding this scheme. Keywords : Financial inclusion, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, formal banking system. 1. INTRODUCTION Prime Minister, Shree Narendra Modi announced the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana or the Prime Minister ‘Scheme for people’s wealth’- an ambitious scheme for comprehensive financial inclusion on his first Independence Day speech on 15 th August, 2014.This Mission enabled all households, urban andrural to gain easy and universal access to financialservices. The scheme is a financial inclusion scheme covering all households in the country with banking facilities, ensuring a bank account for each household.