Who will pay bill for PMJDY

The Government is yet to firm up the modalities for life insurance cover of Rs. 30,000 announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 28 – the launch date of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). The Department of Financial Services (DFS) has forwarded a couple of proposals to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who, as head of the PMJDY mission, is expected to take the final call, official sources said. The proposals under consideration include dipping into the social security fund managed by Life Insurance Corporation and setting up a joint fund by the LIC and the Government.

The basic question that remains unanswered is who will foot the insurance premium bill for the life cover to be provided to 7.5 crore unbanked families in the country.

Indications are that it will fall entirely on LIC, which had initially expressed reservations on bearing this burden.

As of September 10, as many as three crore PMJDY accounts have been opened across the country — 1.9 crore in rural areas and 1.1 crore in urban areas.

However, the main area of concern is that RuPay cards have been issued to only 33 lakh account-holders, which is about 10 per cent of the accounts opened under PMJDY.

As the RuPay card is the basis of all benefits attached to the PMJDY, the Finance Ministry has asked banks to sort out the issues that come in the way of speedier implementation of the programme.

These include personalisation of RuPay cards, devising proper distribution of RuPay cards and ensuring that industry be informed about projections for RuPay cards.