Under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), account holders are provided banking services free of charge and without any requirement of maintaining minimum balance. As per the information provided by banks, district-wise number of accounts opened under PMJDY in Gujarat as on 03.07.2019 is at Annexure I. State-wise details of deposit balance in PMJDY as on 03.07.2019 is at Annexure II.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has rationalized its Branch Authorisation Policy and granted general permission to domestic Scheduled Commercial Banks (excluding Regional Rural Banks), including Public Sector Banks, to open banking outlets (a fixed point service delivery unit, manned by either bank’s staff or its Business Correspondents) at any place in the country, without seeking prior approval of RBI in each case, subject to at least 25 percent of the total number of banking outlets opened during a financial year being in unbanked rural centres (Tier 5 and Tier 6 centres ie. having population less than 10,000). For this purpose, banking outlets opened in any centre having population less than 50,000 in North Eastern states and Sikkim and also Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected districts as notified by the Government of India are also considered as equivalent to opening of banking outlets in unbanked rural centres.

Under PMJDY scheme all villages were mapped into 1.59 lakh Sub-Service Areas (SSAs) where one SSA catering to 1,000 to 1,500 households. As informed by banks, while 0.33 lakh SSAs have been covered with bank branches, 1.26 lakh SSAs have been covered by deployment of interoperable Bank Mitras.

              As per RBI, since the launch of PMJDY in August 2014, the number of rural branches of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) has increased from 41,823 in March 2014 to 51,653 in March, 2019. Further, number of Branch less mode / Business Correspondents (BCs) of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) in rural areas has also increased from 3.37 lakh in March, 2014 to 5.15 lakh in March, 2018.

This was stated by Shri Anurag Singh Thakur, Minister of State for Finance & Corporate Affairs in a written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

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