Ever since the government announced the scrapping of high value currency notes on 8 November, bank accounts opened over the past couple of years under the Jan Dhan Yojana (JDY) have become the subject of a raging controversy. While the government spokespersons and their supporters have cited the JDY numbers to stress the universalization of banking in the country, critics have questioned the credibility of those numbers, pointing out that many of the accounts may be fictitious, and may not belong to the true and deserving beneficiaries of the scheme.

99% of households in both rural and urban India have at least one member with a bank account, the ICE 360° survey shows. 91% of urban households have their Aadhaar card linked to their bank accounts. The comparative figure is lower for rural India at 78%. The survey, covering 61,000 households, is among the largest consumer economy surveys in the country and captures data till July 2016.