New Delhi: In a development that reflects a slowdown in account activity under the Union government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), the number of inoperative accounts in public-sector banks (PSBs) has increased in the last one year.

According to a senior government official cited by Business Standard, the overall share of such accounts has increased from 21% last year to 26% as of the end of September.

“As of September 2025, of a total of 554.5 million PMJDY accounts in PSBs, around 142.8 million were inoperative. For 2025-26, the target for opening new PMJDY accounts in PSBs is 38 million, of which 13.2 million had been opened till September,” the official told the newspaper.

According to the Business Standard report, among the major banks, Bank of India (32%) and Union Bank of India (33%) had the highest share of such inoperative accounts, while Punjab & Sind Bank (8%) had the lowest.

The inoperative ratio for Bank of India increased from 19% in September 2024 to 25% in September 2025.

An email query sent by the newspaper to the finance ministry remained unanswered at the time of going to press.

According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines, a savings account is treated as inoperative or dormant when there are no transactions for over two years.

Business Standard had also reported earlier this year that around 1.5 million inoperative zero-balance PMJDY accounts in April were closed by PSBs as a one-time measure to round out duplicate and non-functional accounts.

The PMJDY was launched in August 2014 by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with an objective of ensuring access to financial services such as banking/savings and deposit accounts, remittance, credit, insurance and pension in an affordable manner.

According to RBI data, at present around 55.5 million PMJDY accounts with balances worth Rs 75,315 million are dormant while 480 million RuPay cards are yet to be received.

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