Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Friday said 4 PSU banks are “investigating from their branches” whether money in some Jandhan accounts was deposited by account holders themselves or by business correspondents to keep the number of zero-balance accounts low.
He was responding to a question on media report alleging that bankers in some branches of Punjab and Sind Bank, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda and Bank of India have themselves deposited Re 1 in the Jandhan accounts to reduce the number of zero-balance accounts.
“In case of few accounts, this issue has arisen and there are names of four banks. We have asked them. The banks are investigating from their branches whether account holders have put in money or business correspondents have done it. After that the banks will give their report to the Department of Financial Services,” Jaitley said.
