Delivering financial aid and relief to vulnerable populations is critical in the pandemic. Jan Dhan, the Indian government’s financial inclusion mission, is a necessary conduit for this. But for it to affect meaningful financial inclusion of the marginalised, and engage civil society as its partner in doing so, Jan Dhan must make disaggregated and transactional real-time data publicly available.
The Covid-19 pandemic has destroyed the livelihood of millions, damaged businesses and pushed people out of jobs. Migrant workers have been forced to return to their native villages. Extending relief to alleviate this suffering somewhat, the Government of India (GoI) deposited INR 500 per month from April to June of 2020 into the Jan Dhan accounts of women.[i]
But the pandemic, predict experts, will continue for a while.[ii] It might even manifest a spike in caseload, before it is over. A one-time cash transfer is, therefore, insufficient to aid people tide the financial crises affected by Covid-19. Long-term financial planning and support is, and will be, required. Towards delivering which, the GoI’s flagship financial inclusion mission, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), will have to play a necessary and critical role.
Launched in 2014, the PMJDY aims to provide every unbanked household access to financial services, with special focus on socially weaker and poorer populations. On the last count, around 43 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened with a total deposit of INR 144870 crore, also 31 crore Rupay debit cards have been issued.[iii]
Broadly speaking, the PMJDY has been a dependable solution for including marginal populations into the financial ecosystem by providing them with access to banking facilities, and opening avenues to institutional credit. It, however, seems to have fallen short of being able to engage them actively and meaningfully. In response to questions asked during parliamentary proceedings on inactive Jan Dhan accounts data on 10 August 2021, the Ministry of Finance reports that INR 5.82 crore i.e. 14 per cent of the Jan Dhan accounts remain inoperative.[iv]
Regrettably, the PMDJY has been largely unable to establish partnerships with civil society entities and organisations to better the situation by expanding the scope of its financial inclusion drive. Among the primary reasons for this disengagement is the limited information flow from Jan Dhan into the public domain.
The Jan Dhan website, which is the sole publicly available data source on the country’s financial inclusion mission, offers only broad contours of aggregated data.[v] It lacks disaggregation at the district level for a majority of important variables. Absent are income-wise and gender-wise transactional data like number of BPL-owned (Below Poverty Line) accounts and number of female-owned accounts respectively. The website only provides data on issuance, such as number of bank accounts opened and Rupay debit cards dispensed. There is no high frequency data on actual usage, such as number of beneficiaries actively transacting through these bank accounts, availing the overdraft facility or using Rupay debit cards.
Table 1 below lists the variables under which transactional Jan Dhan data is available, and lacking, on its website.
Table 1. Data availability on PMDJY performance variables
| PMDJY PERFORMANCE VARIABLES DATA | AVAILABLE |
|---|---|
| Number of beneficiaries at rural/semi urban centre bank branches | ✔ |
| Number of beneficiaries at urban metro centre bank branches | ✔ |
| Number of total beneficiaries | ✔ |
| Deposits in accounts (in crore) | ✔ |
| Number of Rupay debit cards issued to beneficiaries | ✔ |
| Number of beneficiaries using debit cards | ✘ |
| Number of beneficiaries making digital payments | ✘ |
| Number of rural-urban female beneficiaries | ✘ |
| Number of BPL (below poverty line) beneficiaries | ✘ |
| Gross number of accounts opened | ✘ |
| Number of accounts closed | ✘ |
| Number of dormant accounts | ✘ |
| Number of active accounts | ✘ |
| Number of beneficiaries availing overdraft facility | ✘ |
Availability of data on all the variables listed above is sure to go far in helping identify stress-ridden areas where external push is needed to integrate economically and socially excluded people into the formal financial system. Considering the vast illiterate and semi-literate population in India, basic information on digital payments, withdrawals and access are bound to provide us with critical directions on where to initiate interventions on financial literacy. Which, in turn, will also serve the agenda for digital financial inclusion.
Most importantly, filling the data gaps listed in the Table above is especially critical to designing and delivering aid and relief to vulnerable populations in these times of the pandemic. Such data is essential to, both, ensuring efficient and faster flow of funds through accurate targeting of beneficiaries, and facilitating smooth functioning of the government’s financial machinery during crisis. Researchers, development practitioners and media must have access to this data to be able to inform policy, and make evidence-based targeted development interventions.
Tanya Bansal (tbansal@idfresearch.org) is Research Assistant and Soma Wadhwa is Fellow at the India Development Foundation.
[i] Jan Dhan accounts are zero balance savings and deposit accounts with debit card facility, accidental insurance cover of INR 2,00,000 and overdraft facility of INR 10,000. These accounts are eligible for remittances, credit, insurance and pension.
[ii] Experts warn of imminent third wave of Covid-19 in September-October. (2021, August 23). The Hindu. Retrieved from https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/experts-warn-of-imminent-third-wave-of-covid-19-in-september-october/article36057739.ece
[iii] Conceived as an alternate to Mastercard and Visa, Rupay debit cards are domestically accepted cards launched by National Payments Corporation of India, especially to provide electronic access to bank accounts to people residing in smaller towns and villages
[iv] Unstarred Question No. 2453, ‘Inactive Jan-Dhan accounts’. (2021, August 10). Rajya Sabha. Retrieved from https://pqars.nic.in/annex/254/AU2453.pdf
[v] Jan Dhan website: https://pmjdy.gov.in/
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