Union minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, Sudarshan Bhagat on Thursday launched the Pradhan Mantra Jan Dhan Yojana — financial inclusion programme — today at XlRI Auditorium. In his address he emphasised on better implementation of Government’s schemes for development of underprivileged in the country.
He said that the authorities need to tighten belts to ensure that the plan is implemented on the ground level and locals reap the benefits from it. “ We are working are ambitious plans for providing better education and undertaking economic and social development and rehabilitation programme. We want to improve skill development and helping destitute elderly reside in old age homes and providing adequate opportunities for rehabilitation,” the minister said.
Bhagat also suggested that respective states should ensure that scholarship money is transferred to backward/SC and ST students account for timely payment.
The minister who was also shown black flags amidst anti-BJP slogans by nearly 50 JMM supporters near Centre For Excellence while going for the launching ceremony of the financial inclusion program at XlRI Auditorium refused to comment on the protest.
In his speech after launching the scheme, Sudershan Bhagat said that across state nearly 3.75 lakh saving accounts have been opened under this scheme till date.
The program was addressed by executive director Bank of India, R. Koteswaran, Jamshedpur MP Vidyut Mahto and Jamshedpur West MlA Raghubar Das Meanwhile, Dr HK Pradhan, Professor of Finance & Economics at XlRI Jamshedpur and Chief Mentor of financial literacy initiative SANCHETANA emphasised upon the need for a national campaign like “Jan Dhan Yojana” involving all banks in their account opening drive.
Enhancing aceess2finance through bank-linkage drive is a basic need for every low-income and vulnerable household and financial literacy enables them to be more informed about their financial decisions. The bank account opening drive has to be followed up with a more sustained financial literacy drive and consumer protection initiatives. As a socially sensitive management institution like XlRI we have set a goal for ourselves in spreading financial literacy among the unbanked.
He went on to add that the basic savings bank accounts comes with an accidental insurance cover upto Rs 1.00 lakh and an overdraft of Rs. 5000/- in due course. It will also be good to reflect on self-sustainability aspects of the proposed insurance and overdraft arrangements and their economics. It is to be noted here that there are banks who are already offering accidental insurance cover for their account holders.