Many Indians who have inconsistent income, especially from the unorganized sector, usually do not open a bank account due to concerns over service charges and maintaining minimum balance. If maintaining minimum balance is your concern, you may want to consider opening an account under PM Jan Dhan Yojana.
A zero balance account can be opened under Jan Dhan scheme and the account holders not required to maintain a minimum balance. You can open a basic savings account in a public sector or a private lender – deposit, withdraw or transfer money free of cost. Besides, you won’t have to pay anything even for the mobile banking services.
The account holders also get RuPay debit card, without any additional charge.Rupay Cards come with an accidental insurance cover. The card issued after August 2018, come with an accidental insurance cover of up to 2 lakh rupees.
Jan Dhan account holders also earn interest on their deposits. Once the account is operational for six months, you can avail overdraft facility, which is like a credit or a loan against your zero balance account. The overdraft limit is Rs 10,000. The facility of overdraft up to Rs 2,000 can be availed without any condition. Also, Jandhan Accounts come with a life cover of Rs 30,000, which is payable to the nominee after the death of the account holder.
Who should have a Jan Dhan account?
Jan Dhan account is a must have for beneficiaries of government’s direct cash benefit transfer scheme. Benefits of all government-backed schemes extended via Jan Dhan accounts. For instance, during lockdown, about 20 crore women Jan Dhan account holders received Rs 1500 in three instalments as a part of PM Garib Kalyan Yojna. Similarly benefits of Ujjwala scheme, various pension and insurance schemes are extended to the eligible beneficiaries via Jan Dhan accounts.
There are more than 42 crore Jan Dhan accounts in the country of with a collective deposit of Rs 141,592.44 crore. You just need an official photo identity card like a Voter card, Aadhar, driving license or a PAN card to open this account.
