Elaborating on the benefits of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), which completes 10 years this week, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday that for him, this was not just a policy, but an endeavour to build an India where each has access to the formal banking apparatus.
In a post on LinkedIn, PM Modi said that the situation was very different when he took office in 2014 as access to banking was a distant dream of almost half of the country's households.
"Many of you, especially the youth, would be thinking – why does this matter so much? After all, in this age, having a bank account would be very basic and even taken for granted. However, when we assumed office in 2014, the situation was very different. It was almost 65 years since Independence, but access to banking was a distant dream for almost half of our households. Theirs was a world where savings were kept at home, vulnerable to loss and theft. Access to credit was often at the mercy of predatory lenders. The absence of financial security held back so many dreams," he said.
The Prime Minister also mentioned that earlier, Congress nationalised the banks for the benefit of the poor, but the poor never got any access to it.
"This problem becomes even more ironical because four and a half decades ago, banks were nationalised by the then (Congress) government and that too in the name of the poor! Yet, the poor never got access to banking," the PM said.
PM Modi, further said that it was a challenge to implement the scheme at such an "enormous" level, but the determination of the people of India was strong.
"When the Jan Dhan Yojana was rolled out, I remember the scepticism that surrounded it too. Some people asked- could it be possible to bring such a large number of people into the banking system? Will this effort lead to any concrete changes? Yes. The scale of the challenge was enormous, but so was the determination of the people of India to ensure it becomes a reality," he said.
PM Modi termed the PMJDY as a "game-changer" for women's empowerment.
"Almost 30 crore women have been brought into the banking system. Likewise, the benefits of the scheme and the other benefits that come thanks to a bank account have positively impacted crores of SC, ST and OBC families," the PM added.
(ANI)