Banishing Financial Untouchability of the Poor through PMJDY – A Tryst with New Destiny

Abstract

Unrestrained access to financial products and services without any discrimination for the people at the bottom of social pyramid is an elusive goal even after 68 years independence. The social malaise of exclusion has plagued Indian Sub-continent particularly the marginalised population who have been deprived of the benefits of economic growth since independence. A large chunk of unbanked low income people are still reeling under the vicious grip of informal money lenders paying exorbitant interest rates which develops pauperism in wide scale. Govt. and RBI have endeavoured with a slew of measures towards attaining faster and inclusive growth since announcement of Annual Policy of RBI in 2005-06 and beginning of Eleventh Five Year Plan As an economic imperative, the financial inclusion plans of 2010-13 and 2013-16 were pursued with much vigor which failed to make a real dent in addressing the unmet demand of the huge excluded population. The non –availability of basic banking services were primarily attributed to the paradigm shift in policy stance of RBI in moving towards a market-driven policy frame work which focused on innovative product, place( geographical proximity) , price(affordable price of services), protection(client safety) and profitability of the business model implemented by Banks for increasing outreach and access to financial services of the excluded people. The new regime have endeavoured to plug the bottlenecks and repackaged the Financial Inclusion plan with the goal of universal access to Basic Services for all unbanked households by March 2016.With this laudable PMJDY launched by Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 28, 2014with unequivocal focus on removing the bane of financial untouchability,. Growth with equity is the key challenge and economic well-being and prosperity for all is the central theme of the developmental policy

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n2p184