New Delhi, Aug 11
The government’s financial inclusion schemes -- from Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) to MUDRA and the quintessential UPI-based digital payments -- are shifting India’s growth story from being metro-centric to truly national, according to a report on Monday.
According to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, “Economic growth cannot only be restricted to a few cities and a few citizens. Development has to be all-round and all-inclusive.”
“In practice, that inclusivity has been driven not just by rhetoric, but by the deliberate weaving of policy, technology, and community outreach into an unprecedented net of access," according to the report in India Narrative.
Launched in 2021, the Financial Inclusion Index is built on 97 indicators spanning banking, insurance, pensions, investments, and postal services.
Its three sub-indices -- Access, Usage, and Quality -- measure not just the spread of infrastructure, but whether people actually use financial products, and whether they understand them.
“The implementation has been startling in its scale. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) alone has brought 55.98 crore (560 million) people into the formal banking system, over half of them women. A network of 13.55 lakh (1.35 million) ‘Bank Mitras' -- local banking correspondents -- now brings services to remote hamlets,” according to the report.