Jan Dhan data suggest all but 23,000 households in India have access to banking services, but a large proportion of inoperative accounts and Aadhaar seeding remain a challenge
Akshat Kaushal | New Delhi February 11, 2015 Last Updated at 23:50 IST
If the latest figures for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) are anything to go by, all but 23,000 Indian households have already been made part of the banking system - an impressive coverage for the government's ambitious financial-inclusion programme.
According to the PMJDY website, a little more than 127 million new bank accounts have been opened since launch of the scheme on August 28, 2014. Overall, that takes the number of households in the country with at least one individual bank account to 210.5 million.
In what could be a gauge of the scale of coverage, the number of people added to the country's banking system in the past five months is higher than that in the period from 2001 to 2011.
According to the PMJDY website, a little more than 127 million new bank accounts have been opened since launch of the scheme on August 28, 2014. Overall, that takes the number of households in the country with at least one individual bank account to 210.5 million.
In what could be a gauge of the scale of coverage, the number of people added to the country's banking system in the past five months is higher than that in the period from 2001 to 2011.
According to census data, only 36 per cent of Indian households had access to banking services in 2001; this increased to 59 per cent in 2011.