Mallikarjun K. Chougala, Arun Babu Angadi
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is the flagship financial inclusion programme of the Government of India and the foundation of the Jan Dhan–Aadhaar–Mobile (JAM) trinity. Over the last decade, PMJDY has expanded basic savings bank accounts to more than 55 crore beneficiaries, with around two-thirds of accounts located in rural and semi-urban areas. This paper assesses whether the rapid scaling-up of PMJDY has been associated with deeper digital adoption in rural India. Using exclusively secondary data from official sources such as the Ministry of Finance, Reserve Bank of India, Parliament documents, and the National Payments Corporation of India, supplemented by recent survey evidence and academic literature, the study constructs a consolidated data set for the period 2015–2025. Descriptive statistics and trend analysis are used to track the evolution of PMJDY accounts, deposits, RuPay card issuance and rural account shares alongside digital payment indicators such as the RBI Digital Payments Index and aggregate digital transaction volume. A simple correlation analysis for 2020–2025 indicates a very strong positive association between the growth in PMJDY accounts and the RBI-DPI, suggesting that expansion of basic accounts has moved broadly in tandem with the deepening of digital payments infrastructure and usage. However, evidence from rural UPI and AePS usage and from recent survey-based studies shows that gaps in digital literacy, connectivity and trust still constrain active digital use, especially among older and less educated rural account holders. The paper concludes that PMJDY has been a necessary but not sufficient condition for rural digital adoption; complementary investments in digital and financial literacy, cybersecurity safeguards and last-mile infrastructure remain critical for converting access into sustained usage.