The government is aiming at opening three crore new no-frills bank accounts under the PM Jan Dhan Yojana through 2024-25 to bring in all adults and ‘neo-adults’ into the banking system, a top official said.

As of August 14, 53.13 crore bank accounts were opened under the scheme launched ten years ago, with two-thirds of them in rural and semi-urban areas. “About 80% of those accounts are operative, 55.6% belong to women, and only 8.4% accounts have zero balance. With deposits of ₹2.3 lakh crore, the average balance has increased from ₹1,065 in March 2015 to ₹4,352,” the official said on condition of anonymity. .

These basic bank accounts now constitute a significant chunk of the 173 crore operative CASA [Current Account Savings Account] numbers in the country’s banking system. “We believe that most of the adults in the country have been covered with bank accounts and our focus is to cover left out adults and neo-adults,” he explained.