DFS secretary meets chief secretaries to boost PMJJBY, PMSBY enrolments

In a bid to push micro insurance schemes, Financial Services Secretary Vivek Joshi held a meeting with chief secretaries and senior officials of all states and union territories.

The meeting via video conference was held on Monday with the objective of sensitising and impress on states salient features of the intensive three- month long campaign to boost coverage of Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY) and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) at the gram panchayat level.

The three-month campaign will cover all the districts in the country from April 1 to June 30, 2023, the finance ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

During the meeting, states/UTs were urged to increase enrolments under the micro-insurance schemes given the scope and size of population in states, it said.

Currently, it said, active enrolments under PMJJBY are 8.3 crore and 23.9 crore under PMSBY, and claims of about Rs 15,500 crore have been paid under these schemes.

Joshi sought support of chief secretaries for their active role in ensuring effective implementation and monitoring of the campaign.

As a step towards amassing scale, Secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS), will also be taking a meeting with the heads of all public sector banks on April 13, 2023, to ensure that the campaign reaches maximum eligible beneficiaries, it said.

PMJJBY offers life insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh in case of death due to any reason to people in the age group of 18-50 years having a bank or post office account, who give their consent to join or enable auto-debit of premium.

On the other hand, PMSBY offers insurance cover of Rs 2 lakh for accidental death or total permanent disability and Rs 1 lakh for partial permanent disability to people in the age group of 18-70 years with a bank or post office account, who give their consent to join or enable auto-debit of premium.