To what extent the government strategies have been able to change financial literacy / inclusion bank driven model to customer driven model? Discuss critically.

Despite of several steps including priority sector norms, easy branch licensing policy, focus on rural branches, no frill accounts, easy KYC norms, promotion of use of IT and intermediaries , introduction of DBT, Aadhaar platform and so on. However, despite that, covering the excluded population has been a challenge.  It is evident from the fact that of the 24.67 crore households in the country, 10.19 crore still don’t have access to the banking services. In rural areas, 44% households and in urban area, 33% still don’t have bank accounts. The CFIP was planned to make financial services reach via sub-service areas (SSA) model. Each SSA would cover 1000-1500 families in a cluster of villages and would be served via BC agents, who will facilitate the account opening and smooth transactions. There was also a proposal that once the people are brought under formal banking, and are able to operate satisfactorily the accounts, they would be extended credit facilities. Thus, the overall strategy under CFIP was to switch gears from push to pull i.e. from bank driven to customer driven strategy. This resulted in the Jan Dhan Yojana and subsequent efforts on easy mobile banking initiatives.  But the results were still not encouraging because somewhat these all models turned out to be mandate-models of inclusion.

Topics: GS-III: Indian Economy Issues Relating to Planning