No lockdown cash benefit for 40 lakh Jan Dhan accounts

Nearly 40 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in Karnataka, many held by women, are feared to have missed the Rs 500 cash benefit they were to receive under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan package during the Covid-19 lockdown period.

Under the package, women Jan Dhan account holders were to get Rs 500 for three months starting April.

However, during a recent State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) meeting, it was found that 39.66 lakh accounts might have been deprived of the benefit worth Rs 297 crore due to non-submission of or non-linkage with Aadhaar.

The number of Jan Dhan accounts is 1.61 crore of which 1.22 crore are seeded with Aadhaar.

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“Thus the anticipated benefit under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana lost by the women account holders of these 39.66 lakh persons in the state whose Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts are not seeded with Aadhaar, which assuming that 50% of the accounts being of women, is Rs 297 crore,” the SLBC meeting proceedings stated.

“This is a huge loss to the poor people of the state either due to non-submission of Aadhaar data to the banks or non-seeding of the Aadhaar data in Jan Dhan accounts by banks,” it said.

When contacted, Canara Bank general manager B Chandra Sekhara Rao, the SLBC convenor, said that the money was credited to the accounts of women “irrespective of Aadhaar seeding or linkage.”

According to the proceedings, it was decided that all banks should take steps to ensure that all the Jan Dhan accounts get seeded with Aadhaar and mapped “so that they become eligible under the PM Garib Kalyan Yojana.” The Revenue department has been asked to support the banks in this exercise.

A similar anomaly was found with farmers who are covered under the PM-KISAN scheme. According to SLBC data, there are 64.40 lakh farmers receiving cash benefits under PM-KISAN whereas 47.74 lakh farmers have Kisan Credit Cards (KCC).

“It is a matter of concern that there are 7 districts (Ballari, Koppal, Mysuru, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chitradurga and Chikkaballapur) where the coverage is less than 50% and is as low as 32.78% in Chikkaballapur,” the SLBC said, adding that the coverage was over 100% in Kodagu, Davangere, Dakshina Kannada, Bagalkot, Bidar and Vijayapura districts. “The banks need to review the data of coverage,” it said and that ‘proper strategies’ need to be drawn to identify PM-KISAN farmers who have not availed KCC loans.