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a u g u s t 30 , 20 14
because it will give banks some fee incomes which the banks will be forced to
share with the business correspondents
(BCs) in order to keep them interested in
this business. The eventual linking of
RuPay debit cards to Aadhaar numbers
would be a great advantage.
(iv) A minimum remuneration of Rs 5,000
for each of the BCs who will provide the
last link between the account holders
and the concerned bank.
There is no accurate information
regarding the phasing of the total package. One report has suggested that bank
accounts will be opened in the rst phase
which will cover the rst year (15 August
2014 to 14 August 2015) and the second
phase will be completed by 14 August 2018
that is, four years hence. The year 2018
as the target date was suggested by Shikha
Sharma and S S Mundra in their additional views appended to the Nachiket
Mor Committee report.
The nancial implications of the
prime ministers version of the nancial
inclusion scheme and more importantly,
its operational issues, are sure to pose
serious problems. While the Reserve
Bank of India (RBI) and the government
may play some promotional roles, effectively all the problems nancial and
operational will have to be faced by
the banking system. First, if the plan
runs its course, banks will have to provide overdraft facilities for 150 million
bank accounts to the extent of Rs 75,000
crore within the next four years or so.
Second, on the assumption of the need
to move forward the universal nancial
inclusion plan, the RBI has already identied 4,90,000 unbanked villages each
with a population of less than 2,000 and
allotted them to various banks for coverage in a time-bound manner. This coverage is expected to be completed in
the three-year period of 2013-16. Taking
vo l x l IX n o 35
13
COMMENTARY
Therefore, an intermediary low-cost brickand-mortar structure is required between
the base branches and BC locations. This
will provide timely support to BC outlets,
ensure close supervision of BC operations
and give them credibility and increase
peoples condence in BC services. Hence,
banks have been advised to plan for an increase in the proportion of branches that
cover unbanked villages.
March
2013
Rural
11,564
Semi-urban
27,710
Urban
36,111
Metropolitan 38,629
Total
1,14,014
10.1 23,334
24.3 43,200
31.7 47,641
33.9 45,880
100.0 1,60,055
14.6
27.0
29.8
28.7
100.0
No Fr e s h Th in k in g
We now have three blueprints on the
universal or comprehensive nancial
inclusion plan: (i) the prime ministers
Independence Day pronouncements;
(ii) the approach paper of the Department
of Financial Services; and (iii) the regular
three-year plans put out by the RBI
(2010-13 and 2013-16). It is amazing how
in such an important socio-economic
programme as bringing the unbanked
poor and vulnerable households into the
banking fold, there appears to be hardly
any coordination between the government and the RBI.
For instance, the nance ministrys
approach paper makes no reference to
the two recent nancial inclusion plans
evolved by the RBI and implemented
through the involvement of banks. Banks
have been advised to devise nancial
inclusion plans congruent with their
business strategies and to make nancial
inclusion plans an integral part of their
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