Financial inclusion has been recognised as a key building block which will form the foundation for achieving several of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. As a construct, it provides much more than access to financial services. In a country like India, till a few years ago, a bank account was a source of pride. If properly implemented it would provide easy access to banking services to the vast majority of our population.
Steps taken for Financial Inclusion are :
Jan Dhan Yojana – Under this scheme the government has opened over 30 crore accounts with almost 60 per cent being in rural areas. The zero balance accounts amongst these have declined from 77 per cent in 2014 to 20 per cent now showing that the government has been successful in getting unbanked people to actively use it.
- JAM project – Part of financial inclusion has been driven through the linking of Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar and mobile number for providing Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).
- Digital Infrastructures – infrastructure to handle all aspects of servicing such a large segment of the population has been created by the government. • A multitude of solutions such has UPI, BHIM, NeSL and BBPS are few of the efforts in this regard.