This was part of the government’s Rs 21-lakh-crore relief package to help individuals and businesses tide over the Covid-19 pandemic.

The finance ministry has called a meeting of senior bankers and officials of the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on Wednesday to review its various financial inclusion initiatives, including the progress under the Jan Dhan scheme, possible gaps in the issuance of RuPay cards to Jan Dhan account holders and covering the uncovered villages with banking outlets.

Sources told FE that general manager-level officers of various banks and NPCI have been asked to join the meeting at the department of financial services through a video conference.

In a first, Jan Dhan accounts were used by the government recently to successfully transfer Rs 1,500 (in three equal tranches) to about each of the 20.4 crore women beneficiaries to help the poor and vulnerable households. This was part of the government’s Rs 21-lakh-crore relief package to help individuals and businesses tide over the Covid-19 pandemic. As many as 39.4 crore no-frills accounts were opened by banks, mostly state-run ones, since the Jan Dhan scheme was launched in 2015.

Such accounts have become a crucial driver of the government’s direct benefit transfer initiative by plugging leakages.

The meeting will also focus on the progress under the Jan Dhan scheme and the process of dual authentication of accounts of various self-help groups at the level of banking correspondents, who are typically the people or entities employed by lenders to take banking services to the remotest parts of the country.