Abstract
To provide financial protection to those who are vulnerable and financially unreachable, Pradhan Mantri Social Security Schemes were formulated which are life insurance, accident insurance, pension schemes. But the presence of a scheme does not guarantee awareness, enrolment, ongoing uptake and effective access to a scheme among rural households. This research study explores the awareness and penetration of three key Jan Suraksha schemes namely Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana (PMJJBY), Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (PMSBY) and Atal Pension Yojana (APY) focusing on rural Maharashtra. This study fills a gap in the literature in focusing on the difference between aggregate enrolment and meaningful household level awareness and accessibility. A descriptive secondary research design has been used for data collection and analysis and the data has been collected from the official documents of the Department of Financial Services, Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority, Parliament of India and published empirical studies on the awareness of the rural people. The enrolment data of PMJJBY at the district level is analysed for rural/semi urban and urban area of Maharashtra as on November 2025. The evidence indicates that there is significant penetration – Maharashtra had 18.62 million cumulative PMJJBY enrolments, with around 10.41 million of them being rural/semi-urban, accounting for about 56.0% of the state. As of April 2025, the three schemes had managed to enrol in excess of 23.63 crore, 51.06 crore, and 7.66 crore beneficiaries under PMJJBY, PMSBY and APY respectively at the national level. Rural evidence, however, has been published that awareness doesn't always mean enrollment. It was observed that 76% of respondents knew of at least one newly established social-security scheme, and 44% registered for one. A study was carried out in rural Pune and it was found that 76% were aware of at least one newly established social-security scheme, while 44% were registered for one. The study reveals a recurrent literacy awareness-enrolment-utilisation gap linked to the socio-economic factors, communication channels, the complexity of the procedures and the last-mile access. The novelty is the identification of scheme reach and scheme awareness and the suggestion of an integrated scheme awareness, accessibility, enrolment, persistency and utilisation. The study finds that Maharashtra is making good progress in terms of numerical reach, but requires greater financial literacy, outreach by gram-panchayat, banking correspondents, a multilingual approach and systematic monitoring of renewals and usage to prevent social protection from becoming saturated.