State Bank of India expects its accounts with Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana scheme to break even next year given the healthy growth in average deposits in these accounts, while total deposits have more than doubled to Rs 5,125 crore as of June. If they maintain the deposits growth at the current level or even a little less SBI will break even with the Jan Dhan accounts. State Bank of India spends Rs 132 on each such account. SBI managing director and group executive for national banking B Sriram said that in terms of number of such accounts, the bank nearly doubled to 7.81 crore as of end June. But pre-Jan Dhan accounts were 3.95 crore. In June 2014, the number of such accounts stood at 3.76 crore, he said.
56 per cent of 7.81 crore accounts still have zero balance, while this was 69 per cent a year ago and 54 per cent in the March quarter. The average balance in these accounts stood at Rs 656, which was Rs 606 a year ago. The accident cover scheme saw SBI adding 131.14 lakh people, while the life cover plan added 33.15 lakh and the pension scheme added 1.45 lakh people.
The government said, as much as Rs 22,000 crore has been deposited in over 17.5 crore bank accounts within a year of the launch of the Jan Dhan scheme, the largest financial insertion scheme in the world. The scheme was launched on August 28 last year after being announced by the Prime Minister on his first Independence Day speech.
More than 17.5 crore bank accounts were opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and these accounts had over Rs 22,000 crore in deposits. Sriram said deposits in these accounts stood at Rs 4,415 crore as of the March quarter. These accounts saw Rs 13,911 crore in the June quarter alone, up from Rs 8,252 crore a year ago and Rs 38,972 crore in the financial year ending March 2015, which stood at Rs 22,525 crore in FY14.
