All Social Security Schemes To Be Under One Roof: FM

In order to bring efficiency and coordination among the various departments and ministries in relation to social security schemes, the Indian government is seriously contemplating on bringing all the social security schemes under one roof so that the redundancies and confusions can be omitted. Finance minister Arun Jaitley is of the view that all social security schemes must work in tandem to promote overall development of the country’s populace as the current ambit of social security is quite limited.

While addressing a meeting of consultative committee attached to the finance ministry over the PM’s social security schemes, he said; “At present, only 11% of the population of the country is covered under pension schemes while only 20% of the people are insured.” As the government wants to improve this anyhow, three new schemes launched recently by PM viz. Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY), Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY), will play a crucial role in providing much needed social security.

Important to note that, so far, 7.84 crore people have registered under PMSBY, 2.70 crore under PMJJBY and 4.69 lakh people have joined the APY and now the government wants to introduce other variants of these schemes. On the other hand Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana showed a spectacular success with more than 16.73 crore accounts opened, with a deposit of Rs19990 crore.

Secretary, Department of Financial Services, Hasmukh Aadhia, informed that in a crucial development, zero balance of the account has  skewed to 52%, from an earlier figure of 75%. While elaborating the development and expansion of finance under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana (PMMY) Adhia said; “Under PMMY, aimed at augmenting the flow of finance to microfinance sector,  an overall disbursement  target of Rs.1,22,000 crore was set for banks/financial institutions for 2015-16 and till 30th June 2015,  Rs. 6184.80 crore has been dispersed by Public Sector banks and Rs.1592.13 crore by RRBs under PMMY.”