Thu, May 15 01:15 AM
Besides providing jobs to the rural poor, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) is also serving the added objective of financial inclusion. Even as 36 lakh families got full 100 days of employment under the scheme, 1.6 crore bank accounts were also opened for them, says the Ministry of Rural Development.
"This is the largest financial inclusion effort since Independence," says Rural Development Minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh. The ministry wants wages to be directly deposited in these accounts to maintain transparency of transfer of funds to account holders.
For the uninitiated, financial inclusion is the delivery of banking services to disadvantaged and low-income groups at an affordable cost. It is a prime objective of public policy on which the government has been keen for some time now.
As thousands of crores were being disbursed under the NREGA to ensure transparency, the ministry had asked the states to ensure payment of wages to workers through banks or post office accounts. Since 2005-06, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has also been emphasising on the need for banks to achieve greater financial inclusion by making available 'no frills' accounts with either zero or minimal balance to the economically underprivileged.
Even the Rangarajan Committee on Financial Inclusion pointed out that 45.9 million farmer households in the country (51.4 per cent) out of a total of 89.3 million households, don't access credit either from institutional or non-institutional sources. It also suggested the launch of a National Rural Financial Inclusion Plan to provide financial services to 55.77 million financially excluded households by 2012.
If you are young, have a hectic social life where you drink and party, and have applied for a job, chances are you will lose out to someone who is a teetotaler.
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