Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, speaking in Bengaluru on Sunday, 14 June 2026, highlighted the scale of India's digital public infrastructure, citing landmark figures across the JAM trinity, UPI, eShram, and PM MUDRA as evidence that technology and formalisation are expanding economic opportunity for ordinary Indians.

Context

Sitharaman underscored that the JAM trinity — more than 58 crore PM Jan Dhan accounts, 144 crore Aadhaar identities, and 125 crore mobile connections — has narrowed the distance between citizens and government services. She added that UPI now processes over 2,100 crore transactions every month, reflecting the depth of digital payments adoption across the country.

On the labour and credit side, she noted that eShram has registered over 31 crore workers from the unorganised sector, while more than 57 crore loans have been sanctioned under PM MUDRA, with 66 per cent of those loans going to women borrowers.

Policy backdrop

Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana was launched in August 2014 to bring zero-balance bank accounts to unbanked households, forming the banking pillar of the JAM stack. Aadhaar, administered by the UIDAI, provides the biometric identity layer that enables direct benefit transfers and authentication across welfare programmes.

UPI, rolled out by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) in April 2016, created a low-cost, interoperable payments rail that has since grown into one of the world's highest-volume real-time payment systems. PM MUDRA, announced in April 2015, channels collateral-free credit to micro and small enterprises through banks and non-banking lenders. The eShram portal, launched in August 2021, was designed to create a national database of unorganised workers and link them to social security schemes.

Together, these programmes form an integrated digital public infrastructure stack aimed at formalising informal economic activity and reducing leakages in welfare delivery — a policy architecture built incrementally since 2014.

Stakeholders and impact

The figures cited by Sitharaman point to three distinct beneficiary groups: rural and semi-urban households brought into formal banking through Jan Dhan; unorganised workers — including daily-wage labourers and gig workers — registered on eShram; and micro-entrepreneurs, particularly women, who have accessed credit under MUDRA. The 66 per cent share of MUDRA loans going to women is a recurring data point the government uses to illustrate gender-inclusive credit expansion.

For the broader economy, UPI's monthly transaction volume of over 2,100 crore signals that digital payments have moved well beyond urban early adopters, with small merchants and rural users now driving a significant share of throughput.

What's next

Sitharaman's remarks in Bengaluru come ahead of the next Union Budget cycle, where digital public infrastructure and fintech regulation are expected to figure prominently. Observers will watch for any legislative proposals on data protection that could affect Aadhaar-linked services, as well as potential expansions of the MUDRA credit ceiling or new eShram-linked social security entitlements. The government's ability to sustain and deepen this infrastructure stack will be a key indicator of how far formalisation of the informal economy has progressed.