NABARD roles out new plan for financial inclusion of rural India

Kolkata, Jul 31 (UNI) National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has launched a unique rural linkage programme for banks and other financial institutions through Self Help Groups(SHG) for financial inclusion of India's 748 million village population.

This was announced here today by NABARD Chairman Y S P Thorat while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI sponsored Banking Conclave in the city.

Underscoring the need for financial inclusion of more than 51 per cent of India's vast rural population to ensure the projected 9.5 GDP growth by the end of current fiscal, Dr Thorat, also an economist of international repute, said it was very unfortunate that even after five decades of independence about 27 per cent of rural marginal farmers were still out of the purview of any banking facility.

In an all out effort to reach to these population of more than 69 million, NABARD had recently launched a special bank linkage programme with the helf of a large number of SHGs and NGOs to reach over 400,000 villages under a timebound programme.

Since the Indian economy was basically based on the success of three major pillers, namely the state administration, financial institutions and the community developers, Dr Thorat said for successful financial inclusion and brining the entire rural population under the bank credit facilities, the role of all the three pillers were equally important.

Further elaborating he said, the role of state was to provide an exclusive framework through fiscal measures which in turn increased investment in economic and social capital. About the role of financial institutions, Dr Thorat observed that in reducung poverty through trainning facility, livelihood opportunities and good payment system they should play a much greater role, while the role of diffetrent communities would be that of catalytic.

Referring to the similar situation abroad, Dr Thorat said while every citizen in Englind was exposed to the Banking system in one way or the other through a national legislation, in the USA despite having one of the most modern banking system about 14 per cent of population continued to renain out of reach of any banking system.

In terms of low income group, people as many as 22 per cent people did not have any access to the banking system in the USA, the NABARD Chairman informed and reiterated his commitment to improve the government's decision to bring 100 per cent of Indian rural population under financial inclusion within the next five year plan.

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