Critically evaluate the achievements and persisting challenges of the PMJDY a decade after its launch.

Launched on 28 August 2014 as the National Mission for Financial Inclusion, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) sought to bank the unbanked through zero-balance accounts, RuPay cards, insurance and overdraft. A decade on, it has decisively solved the access problem, but usage and quality of inclusion remain unfinished business.

Achievements

• Scale of coverage: from 14.72 crore accounts in 2015 to 56.16 crore accounts with ₹2,67,756 crore deposits by August 2025 — the world's largest financial inclusion drive [1][2].
• Equity of reach: about 55.7% women account holders and 66.7% accounts in rural/semi-urban areas, aligning the scheme with the Antyodaya principle [1].
• Plugging leakages: as the base of the JAM trinity, PMJDY enables Direct Benefit Transfer across 327 schemes, replacing intermediated welfare delivery with direct credit [1].
• Digital deepening: transactions rose from 2,338 crore (FY19) to 22,198 crore (FY25); over 38 crore RuPay cards issued free of cost [1].

Persisting challenges

• Dormancy: a significant share of accounts remain inoperative — roughly one-fifth were non-operative in 2022 — implying opening an account is not the same as using one [3].
• Shallow inclusion: average balances remain low (about ₹4,076 per account in 2023), and accounts function largely as DBT conduits rather than savings or credit gateways [4].
• Credit gap: uptake of the overdraft facility stays limited, so "funding the unfunded" lags behind "banking the unbanked."
• Last-mile capacity: reliance on banking correspondents, patchy connectivity and weak financial literacy constrain service quality, especially for women and remote users.

On balance, PMJDY is a genuine structural success — it built the plumbing of financial democracy that political freedom alone did not deliver. The next decade must shift the metric from accounts opened to accounts actively used: linking Jan Dhan holders to MUDRA credit, pension and insurance products, strengthening banking-correspondent viability, and tracking progress through the RBI's Financial Inclusion Index, so that access matures into genuine economic empowerment.