RBI Restricts Withdrawal From Jan-Dhan Accounts to Rs 10,000 Per Month
NEW DELHI : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), with a view to protect the innocent farmers and rural account holders of Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana from their accounts being misused, has decided to place certain limits on the operations in the PMJDY accounts funded through deposits of Specified Bank Notes (SBNs) after November 9, 2016.
As per the new set of guidelines issued by the RBI on Wednesday for Jan-Dhan accounts, the limited or non-KYC compliant account holders may now be allowed to withdraw Rs 5,000 per month from the amount deposited through SBNs after November 9.
Also, the limited or non-KYC compliant account holders will have an overall ceiling of Rs 10,000 per month.Further the guidelines state that fully KYC complaint account holders may be allowed to withdraw Rs 10,000 from their accounts in a month.
The branch managers may allow withdrawals beyond Rs 10,000 within the current applicable limits only after ascertaining the genuineness of such withdrawals and duly documenting the same on bank’s record.
Discussing the impact of these limits, Rajnish Kumar, MD, SBI told “The Jan Dhan accounts are usually operated through Business Correspondent (BC) channels and we had already put in a restriction on withdrawal for non-KYC-compliant accounts. So the impact should be minimal except the change in withdrawal limits.”
Claiming that the SBI is working out strategies to smoothen out the cash circulation to meet pay-day requirements, he asserted that the bank, so far, has recalibrated roughly 39,000 of its 48,000 ATMs.
It, however, said branch managers may allow further withdrawals beyond Rs 10,000 a month within the current applicable limits only after ascertaining the genuineness of such withdrawals and duly documenting the same on bank’s record.
With regard to deposits, Jan Dhan account holders have a limit of Rs 50,000. Ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes will no longer remain legal tender, there have been a lot of suspicious activity on tens of thousands of Jan Dhan accounts in the country.
As on November 16, 25.58 crore accounts with aggregate deposits of Rs 64,252.15 crore have been opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) across the country.
Leading the pack of states, Uttar Pradesh has the highest number of account holders to the tune of 3.79 crore and therefore highest deposits of Rs 10,670.62 crore. It is followed by West Bengal with 2.44 accounts and deposits of Rs 7,826.44 crore.
Rajasthan comes at the third spot with 1.89 crore accounts and the deposit in these accounts totals to Rs 5,345.57 crore while Bihar with 2.62 crore accounts have deposits of Rs 4,912.79 crore as of November 16.
