JAM to bring all citizens under one financial, digital space: Arun Jaitley

In a similar way as the GST has created a unified economic market, the JAM (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar and Mobile) trinity will eventually bring all Indians into a common financial, economic and digital space. In a Facebook post on Sunday, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the JAM was a social revolution, where poor will have access to financial services. “Within reach of the country is what might be called the 1 billion-1 billion-1 billion vision. That is 1 billion unique Aadhaar numbers linked to 1 billion bank accounts and 1 billion mobile phones. Once that is done, all of India can become part of the financial and digital mainstream,” he said.

Highlighting the benefits, the union minister said the poor will have access to financial services and be cushioned against life’s major shocks while government finances will be improved because of the reduced subsidy burden and weeding out of leakages from the system. Currently, the government makes a direct transfer of Rs 74,000 crore to the financial accounts of 35 crore beneficiaries annually, at more than Rs 6,000 crore per month. These transfers are made under various government anti- poverty and support schemes such as PAHAL, MNREGA, old age pensions …read more