The Centre has reaffirmed its commitment to the various social security schemes for the poor.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told the second meeting of the consultative committee of MPs on his Ministry that the ambit of social security coverage has widened in the last one year with the government launching various initiatives.

He said the schemes launched by the Centre are the way for future and the other variants of them will be started soon. The Ministry told the committee that only 11 per cent of the population of the country is covered under pension schemes while only 20 per cent of the people are insured at present.

Jaitley said the government wants to improve the situation by bringing maximum people under these benefits. Citing programmes such as the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana, Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Atal Pension Yojana, he said these schemes will play an important role to ensure universal social security and added they have evoked a positive response from the people.

He said about 11 crore people have enrolled in these schemes.

Jaitley said the Centre plans to bring various social security schemes under one roof for a better policy formulation and coordination. He claimed that the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has recorded success with opening of 16.73 crore accounts within a year with a total deposits of ₹19,990.52 crore.

Senior officials of the Ministry also made presentations before the panel. The government told the members that the number of zero balance accounts have come down from 75 per cent to 52 per cent in the Jan Dhan Yojana.

Under PMJJBY, the government said, 114 claims were made till July 10 and 54 have been already settled. A total corpus of ₹14.91 crore has been accumulated so far under the APY.

A government release said the Members of the panel gave their suggestions on these schemes.

“Most of the Members of the Committee congratulated the government for both launching and successfully implementing these social security schemes. They appreciated that these schemes are unprecedented and unparalleled measures,” the release claimed.

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