According to reports, almost 40 lakh Jan-Dhan accounts in the Southern state of Karnataka, are feared to have missed the Rs 500 cash benefit that they were to receive under Government’s Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan package during the lockdown period.
Under PMGKY, women Jan Dhan account holders were supposed to get Rs 500 for 3 months from April onwards. But, during a recent State Level Bankers’ Committee meeting, it was found that around 39.66 lakh accounts could have been deprived of the benefit worth Rs 297 crore because of non-submission of or non-linkage with Aadhaar.
The total number of Jan Dhan accounts is 1.61 crore, out of which 1.22 crore are seeded with the Aadhaar. Therefore, the expected benefit under PMGKY lost by the women account holders of these 39.66 lakh people in Karnataka whose Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts are not seeded with Aadhaar, which assuming that 50 percent of the accounts being of women, is Rs 297 crore, according to the SLBC meeting proceedings.
It said, “This is a huge loss to the poor people of Karnataka either due to non-submission of Aadhaar data to the banks or non-seeding of Aadhaar data in Jan Dhan accounts by banks”.
On this General Manager of Canara Bank B Chandra Sekhara Rao, the SLBC convenor, said that the money was credited into the accounts of women ‘irrespective of Aadhaar seeding or linkage’.
As per the proceedings, it was decided that all banks must take steps to ensure that all Jan Dhan accounts are seeded with the Aadhaar and mapped so that they become eligible under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. The Revenue department has been told to support the banks in this task.
A similar anomaly was noticed with farmers who are covered under Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana. According to State Level Bankers’ Committee data, there are 64.40 lakh farmers getting cash benefits under PM-Kisan and 47.74 lakh farmers have Kisan Credit Cards.
The committee said, “It is a matter of concern that there are seven districts - Koppal, Mysuru, Tumakuru, Kolar, Chitradurga, Chikkaballapur and Ballari where the coverage is less than 50 percent and is as low as 32.78 percent in Chikkaballapur”. It added that the coverage was over 100 percent in Kodagu, Davangere, Kannada, Bagalkot, Bidar, Vijayapura and Dakshina districts.
SLBC also said, “The banks need to review the data of coverage,” and that ‘proper strategies’ should be drawn to find out PM-Kisan farmers who have not availed KCC loans.
Source - Deccanherald
