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Lend them a banking hand India’s financial inclusion aims will be met only when made-forthe-poorest products get rolling. ICT is the key to it...
By Pratap Vikram Singh
F
inancial inclusion is high on the government’s agenda. With acts and schemes like Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee (MGREG), Right to Education and Right to Information in place, there is serious talk about providing access to financial services to the aam aadmi. Though there is clarity at the conceptual level in government policy making and also in the banks on including the financially excluded—around 60 percent of the country’s population—nothing substantial seems to have happened at the grass-root level. Assigning of UID numbers to both rural and urban citizens and a serious approach towards inclusive banking could bring out some concrete results. It’s been 63 years since India got independence and more than 40 years since a number of banks got nationalised, yet a mere 5.2 percent of the country’s villages have access to banking centres. The unavailability of any kind of financial ser-
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egov / www.egovonline.net / November 2010