This paper examines digital financial inclusion (DFI) in India over 2021-2026, focusing on the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The study is anchored in Riley and Kulkarni (2022), whose cross-country analysis of the gender gap in mobile money use found that, in India, a significant gender gap persisted even after controlling for socio-demographic and enabling factors. Building on this foundation, the present paper asks two linked questions: how effective have India's flagship digital-finance schemes been at deepening inclusion overall, and what gender and regional disparities remain beneath the aggregate success. Using secondary data from the Reserve Bank of India, the National Payments Corporation of India, the World Bank's Global Findex Database, and Government of India sources, the paper documents a near five-fold rise in cumulative PMJDY accounts and a four-fold rise in UPI transaction volume between FY2021-22 and FY2025-26. The RBI's Financial Inclusion Index rose from 53.9 to 67.0 over the same period, indicating broad-based progress in access, usage, and quality. However, cross-sectional comparison across Indian states reveals substantial regional disparity: per-capita UPI usage in Telangana is roughly six to eight times that of Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, mirroring long-standing North-South and rural-urban development gradients. On gender, bank account ownership among women has converged with that of men (89 percent each in 2024), yet a meaningful gap remains in active digital-payment usage, where independent estimates place women's share of UPI users at under 30 percent. The paper concludes that India's account-opening success has not yet been matched by equivalent progress in usage-level equity, across either gender or geography, and offers practical recommendations: gender-disaggregated NPCI data publication, agent-assisted onboarding in low-usage states, and targeted investment in women's mobile and smartphone access.
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