Minimum Balance Requirement in Jan Dhan Accounts. Really?

Recently a tweet was posted by Kanhaiya Kumar on 22^nd January, 2019 claiming accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojna by ‘Gappu ji’ were penalized for not maintaining minimum balance, which earned thousands of crores of rupees.

The tweet, till now had been retweeted approx 3500 times.

The tweet read

“गप्पू जी ने पहले जन-धन योजना में बैंक में खाता खुलवाया, फिर नोटबंदी करके सारा पैसा उसमें डलवाया, फिर मिनिमम बैलेंस पर फ़ाइन लगाकर हज़ारों करोड़ कमाया और फिर धन्नासेठों का तीन लाख करोड़ का लोन माफ़ कर दिया। पता है ना आपको?”

गप्पू जी ने पहले जन-धन योजना में बैंक में खाता खुलवाया, फिर नोटबंदी करके सारा पैसा उसमें डलवाया, फिर मिनिमम बैलेंस पर फ़ाइन लगाकर हज़ारों करोड़ कमाया और फिर धन्नासेठों का तीन लाख करोड़ का लोन माफ़ कर दिया।

पता है ना आपको?

— Kanhaiya Kumar (@kanhaiyakumar) January 22, 2019

Translation: “Gappu ji firstly got the bank accounts opened under Jan Dhan Yojana, then got all the money deposited in them after announcing demonetisation, then earned crores by imposing fines on minimum balance and finally waived off the loans worth three lakh crores of the rich. You know about this right?”. Kanhaiya Kumar in his post mentions that minimum balance is required for maintaining Jan Dhan Accounts and people have to pay fines for that.

Truth

What Kanhaiya Kumar has said is a false statement. While the banks in India charge money for not maintaining minimum balance in the ‘savings account’, it stands totally false for Jan Dhan Accounts. Under Jan Dhan Yojana Scheme there is no such minimum balance requirement.

A tweet from SBI twitter account stands as a proof related to no minimum balance Jan Dhan Accounts.

Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), Small accounts and Basic Savings Bank Deposit (BSBD) accounts are exempt from MAB requirement and (3/6)

— State Bank of India (@TheOfficialSBI) September 16, 2017

In Latest relevant post, i.e. 31st Dec 2018, India Today published an article how banks earned more by penalizing accounts for not maintaining minimum balance than Vijay Mallya or Nirav Modi loan amount. But they also specifically mentioned that Jan Dhan Yojna accounts are exempted from this penalty.

“The RBI has exempted basic saving bank deposits (BSBD) accounts and accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) from the minimum balance clause. However, these accounts can be fined for extra ATM transactions.

(BSBD accounts and PMJDY accounts are saving accounts that have a cap on the amount that can be transacted from them. They are aimed at providing banking services to low-income groups.)” Source – India Today

The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana accounts are the zero balance SBI savings accounts that were opened by the government for the purpose of financial inclusion and these accounts do not require maintenance of a particular minimum balance. NDTV Profit talks about SBI Minimum Balance Rules and Zero Balance Accounts in the article posted by it. SBI Minimum Balance Rules and Zero Balance Accounts

To know more about zero minimum balance accounts one can refer to a report by an Indian Financial Daily ‘livemint’ clarifies the same and explains in detail about the Jan Dhan Accounts. SBI’s zero minimum-balance savings account explained in 10 points