NEW DELHI: The Modi government has been praised all round for getting 21.81 cr bank accounts opened in roughly one and a half years. The account holders are poor and most live in far flung rural areas. The idea behind opening bank accounts was that it would empower them financially by encouraging savings, easing loan delivery and direct cash transfers. So how are these account holders doing? And how is the scheme, dubbed Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana (JDY) doing?The JDY account hold Rs.37,617 cr balance as of April 2016 or about Rs.1700 per account. That's not a princely sum, but then perhaps the account holders' economic status permits only this much to be held in a bank.A survey done by international financial consultancy MicroSave earlier this year revealed that about 33 percent of the PMJDY accounts were actually second accounts, that is, the holders already had another bank account . It is this that perhaps explains why 28 percent of the new accounts are dormant, not showing any transactions.Charan Singh, the RBI Chair professor at IIM-Bangalore who has extensively studied financial inclusion considers the PMJDY "a laudable and herculean effort, especially when we know that these accounts were not low hanging fruits".So, what explains the second accounts? Partly, the reason lies in giving targets to banks, so that they go on an account opening spree. But another reason is found in the MicroSave survey which says that many people thought that govt. funds will come only in these new accounts, or that over-draft of Rs.5000 will become available.The lynchpin of the whole scheme is the Bank Mitra (BM), an agent of the bank who operates in a given area of 4-5 villages, owns a Net connected device for transactions and gets a commission or a fixed pay.Deepti Shrivastava is a BM in Chhattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. She and her husband do the job together. They told TOI that they earn about Rs.3000 to 3200 per month."It's not sufficient. There are so many BMs in villages that we can't earn more," they ruefully said.Connectivity and technical issues are also a big problem, said Bechan Mishra of Jaunpur district in UP. Due to poor Net connection things like Aadhaar linking are very troublesome, he told TOI.The MicroSave survey too found that average profit of BMs was just Rs.2542 per month after accounting for costs. On an average, each Bank Mitra (BM) conducts 301 transactions every month, involving withdrawals of Rs.1116 and deposits of Rs.785."This is too low. This cannot be commercially viable, as you can notice with the volume of money held as balances - on which banks can make some money," Singh said.Singh had carried out micro-surveys in 2013 on how villagers see the banking system and he found that there is mistrust about govt. funds flowing to personal accounts."I have learnt that there is a certain fear in the minds of rural people that if money that comes from the government is not immediately withdrawn, it can go back to the government again. So, there is reluctance of keeping the balance in the account even if money is coming under direct transfers," he said.He strongly argues for better designing of schemes being offered under PMJDY, saying that the present offers are "designed for a typical urban middle income group"."Is there any scheme designed for the urban poor, or rural poor, or rural agricultural dependent poor? None, to my knowledge. Therefore, to make PMJDY successful, we have to understand the needs of the poor and devise our products accordingly," he asserted.