Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY)
Hon’ble Prime Minister announced Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana as the National Mission on Financial Inclusion in his Independence Day address on 15th August 2014, to ensure comprehensive financial inclusion of all the households in the country by providing universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic bank account to every household, financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension facility.
Under this, a person not having a savings account can open an account without the requirement of any minimum balance and, in case they self-certify that they do not have any of the officially valid documents required for opening a savings account, they may open a small account. Further, to expand the reach of banking services, all of over 6 lakh villages in the country were mapped into 1.59 lakh Sub Service Areas (SSAs), with each SSA typically comprising of 1,000 to 1,500 households, and in the 1.26 lakh SSAs that did not have a bank branch, Bank Mitras were deployed for branchless banking.