The total amount of money in bank accounts under the Jan Dhan Yojana scheme rose to a little over Rs 87,000 crore in the 45 days after the Centre announced the demonetisation of the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes, The Hindu reported on Monday. While the accounts had Rs 45,637 crore before the decision was announced , Rs 41,523 was deposited in 48 lakh accounts between November 10 and December 23, 2016.
Another 69 lakh Jan Dhan accounts were added between November 9 and December 28, 2016, a of them in urban areas, The Hindu Business Line reported. However, the percentage of zero-balance accounts under the scheme rose to 24.12% as of December 28 from 23.27% on November 9. The amount of money deposited doubled in states such as Gujarat and Karnataka.
In a statement, the Income Tax Department said it was investigating areas and bank branches where the largest sums of money had been deposited, IANS reported. “The inflow of funds in the accounts after the first two weeks [of demonetisation being announced] was below Rs 5,000 crore a week and then it reduced to about Rs 1,000 crore a week,” a senior government official said. “All this information is being dissected.”
The government and the Reserve Bank of India are trying to crack down on the reported misuse of these accounts to launder money. On November 30, the RBI set a temporary monthly withdrawal limit of Rs 10,000 for Jan Dhan bank accounts.
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