20 lakh Jan Dhan accounts empty in UP! Burden of Rs 700 crore on banks; Danger of cyber fraud also

UP News: Lakhs of bank accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojana in Uttar Pradesh are now becoming a cause of concern for banks. According to a recent report, there are about 20 lakh Jan Dhan accounts in 8 districts of the state which do not have even a single penny, that is, these are completely zero balance accounts. These 8 districts belong to Purvanchal and Western UP. These include Agra, Meerut, Saharanpur and Bijnor from Western UP, while Azamgarh, Ghazipur, Jaunpur and Kushinagar are from Purvanchal districts. Overall, there are more than 1.60 crore Jan Dhan accounts in these districts, but out of these, 20 lakh accounts are lying completely empty. About Rs 7800 crore is deposited in the remaining accounts.

More number of women in accounts

It has also been told in the report that the number of women in these accounts is more than men. There are a total of 10.22 crore Jan Dhan accounts in entire Uttar Pradesh, which is about 18 percent of the 57.58 crore accounts in the entire country. This is the highest in the country. Of these, about 53 percent accounts are in the name of women and the total deposits in these accounts are more than Rs 58 thousand crores.

700 crore spent in handling 20 lakh accounts

The biggest concern is that maintaining these empty accounts is proving to be very expensive for the banks. The bank has to spend about Rs 3500 every year to keep a Jan Dhan account open and maintained. This includes technical arrangements (IT systems), salary of employees and maintenance of the bank branch. Accordingly, banks have to spend around Rs 700 crore every year just to handle these 20 lakh empty accounts.

Zero balance accounts in doubtful category

Apart from this, banks have also put these zero balance accounts in the doubtful category. The reason for this is that such accounts can become “money mule accounts”. Money mule accounts are accounts that criminals use to move or launder illegal money. For example, if an account remains idle for a long time and suddenly a large amount is deposited in it and is immediately withdrawn, the bank considers it suspicious. In such cases, the possibility of cyber fraud or illegal transactions increases.

Another reason behind this is that in many such accounts, KYC information is not complete or updated. Taking advantage of this, cyber criminals can misuse these accounts through fake documents.

Jaunpur leads in zero accounts

If seen district wise, Jaunpur has the highest number of zero balance accounts at 3.32 lakh. After this, 2.71 lakh accounts are vacant in Azamgarh, 2.45 lakh in Kushinagar, 2.39 lakh in Agra, 2.36 lakh in Saharanpur, 2.27 lakh in Bijnor, 2.26 lakh in Meerut and 2.09 lakh in Ghazipur.

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Therefore there is a need to activate

Let us tell you that Jan Dhan Yojana has played a big role in providing banking facilities to the common people, but now a large number of inactive and empty accounts are becoming both a financial burden and a security risk for the banks. In such a situation, there is a need to activate these accounts and use them properly.

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