Large Scale Money Laundering Through Jan Dhan Accounts? Here’s What The Numbers Say

While a sum of Rs 39,000 crore has found its way to Jan Dhan accounts since demonetisation was announced, only a miniscule number of these accounts have seen deposits of more than Rs 3 lakh. According to a Business Standard report there are only 1,950 such accounts with deposits of more than Rs 3 lakh, and of these, only 40 accounts have very large deposits.

While many speculated that Jan Dhan accounts across the country could be used to launder black money, the above numbers indicate large scale money laundering (in the order of tens of crores) has not taken place – provided the numbers we see are correct.

Further, we can reasonably assume that the IT department is now closely tracking the accounts which saw large deposits. Tracking is easier since the number of such accounts are miniscule. With large withdrawals banned (transfers can also be easily tracked) the individuals behind these deposits are now ‘trapped’ – they will have to come clean using the income disclosure scheme or wait for the income tax department to finally catch up with them. One of these two possibilities is inevitable.