Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Submitted by:
Rakesh Kumar
Tarique Ansari
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.................................................................................................................3
1. Village Profile.......................................................................................................................5
2. The Journey - Those seven days!........................................................................................7
3. The Survey..........................................................................................................................11
4. Probing Deeper...................................................................................................................13
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................16
Annexure: Two Interactions from our Diary:.....................................................................17
List of abbreviations
Executive Summary
It is often said India lives in her villages. It is thus pertinent to know the quality of life of
the people in the villages, which in turn largely depends historical, cultural, social, attitudinal,
economical, political and lately technological spheres. Any policy intervention aimed at
improving the quality of life in the villages demands information on various indices of
development.
The Village Immersion Project, an unstructured training program of experiential learning
that put RBI officers in the shoes of their clients, namely the poor of the country, by spending
days and nights with them in their village provides a unique perspective to understanding of
village life, financial inclusion and rural development.
In our approach to study Chandeni village was to carry our three dimensional study to study
Chandeni village and recommend some changes which can be made from RBIs perspective, we
felt that looking at this village from Financial eyes would mean like suggesting cure only for
fever to a patient suffering from Typhoid. It would rather be prudent to study this village from
different eyes and not just financial eyes. We came to believe from our field work and
analyzing the village geography both physical and human, that we need to understand the social
fabric and its role in making financial decisions.
We, therefore tried to increase the depth of our understanding of the village dynamics by
interacting with Panchayat Sarpanch Shri. Rattan lal and other panchayat members, SHGs,
Aanganwadi people, NGOs working in village, State Government officials, Shri. V. S. Bhatnagar,
DDM, NABARD, Shri. S. Piplaya, branch manager of Syndicate Bank, Business correspondent
of Chandeni village, local school teachers/children and local people.
1. Village Profile
Chandeni Village is located four kilometers away from Sub- District Nuh, Mewat that is
around 100 kilometers away from National Capital of India. Chandeni village is one among
51 villages under Sub- District Nuh of Mewat. Mewat is an insulated and backward district of
Haryana not connected by rail, and barely connected by buses. The area is mostly inhabited
by an ethnic group called Meo who follow Islam.
50
100
150
200
250
300
1.4 Education
The area has two Government High Schools - one each for boys and girls. The details of
literacy in the village are depicted in the following bar chart.
3000
2500
2000
Literates
1500
Iliterates
1000
500
0
Male
Female
Total
1.5 Health
There is a government run Swasthya Kendra, however there is dearth of both medicines as
well as doctors, it functions more as a first aid centre.
and
level
of
financial
awareness
among
locals.
There
we
met
the Banking Correspondent of the Chandeni Village who became our constant companion for
the next seven days.
After having our lunch at a Dhaba near bank we headed straight to Panchayat Office in order
to know the basic contours of the village life and seek vital information which would help
make our immersion a successful one. Sarpanch was kind enough to serve us tea. He gave a
general overview of the village, after collecting the information we had a walk through the
village and interacted with elderly people who shared their experience about various aspects
of the village life.
Day 2
We began the second day with a planned strategy based on the information collected on Day
One. We had prepared a small questionnaire, which was presented to village households for
better understanding the village people. The questions were designed specifically to know
their financial awareness, what they feel about banks, what they feel about other institutional
and non-institutional forms of credit. This gave us some understanding of financial literacy of
the people of Chandeni
Day 3
On day three we started our day by visiting a NGO, which was hosting a meeting with
NABARD officials to discuss the financial needs of Chandeni and other villages. This NGO
gave us the understanding of what NGOs think of people of Chandeni village and how they
are contributing to make in change in the lives of people of Chandeni. This NGO was
working to provide skills to unskilled people to make handmade baskets and other such items
to earn their living.
We got an opportunity to meet the BDO (Block Development Officer) and discussed with her
how the Government of Haryana is planning to develop the block and improve upon various
indicators like health, education, literacy and financial inclusion. She while emphasising on
co-operation and co-ordinantion among the different stakeholders of development, made vital
suggestions about the role the banks can play in effective implementation of social sector
schemes. The fruitful discussion with BDO brought us to believe that banks have a greater
role to play rather than what we had thought by sitting at our respective desks in our
Departments at Mumbai.
Day 4
On fourth day we decided to visit the local school and meet nearby residents. The village has
two Government High Schools - one each for boys and girls. We visited boys high
school. The visit was refreshing and we interacted with the children, gave them some
information about banking. Head Master Shri. Maan Singh showed us various facilities
available to the students viz a well built school building, a big playground, availability of
electricity, drinking water, toilet facility and kitchen for preparing mid day meal. However,
there was dearth of teachers for important subjects like Maths and Science. Upon discussion
with the teachers, locals and students we observed that the quality of education is very poor
due to lack of motivated staff and parents. After completing the high school education,
student generally goes to Sr. Secondary School located in Ferozpur Namak. The female
dropout rate is high for three reasons- (i) due to household chores, (ii) early marriage and
(iii) parents' reluctance to send them to nearby town for further studies after completing Class
VIII from the Village School.
Day 5
On the fifth day we decided to meet vulnerable sections of society - senior citizens, women
and Schedules Caste to have a view of the village from their perspective. We met a group of
senior citizens and understood their opinion about finance. We were surprised to see that they
were not interested in placing their pension money in banks as according to them while banks
can pay a maximum interest of somewhere around 10% interest while they could earn 20%
interest by way of money lending. An interaction between business correspondent and elderly
revealed that few of them who seemed from powerful communities were only interested in
taking loans, however their intension of repaying the same was not doubtful. They also knew
about various schemes, which help them get easy loans. This brought us to conclusion that
although they had knowledge of bank financial products, they are financially aware but not
financially prudent. We explained them the demerits of money lending and various
repercussions non-payments of loan amounts.
Next, we met a group of women including elderly women. They all had opened the accounts
with the bank and were regularly keeping their savings in the bank via business
correspondent. Few of them had formed SHG and taking advantage of bank linkages, they
also told us about the various radio programs, which help them understand banking products.
On a corner of village, we could see few new homes constructed under Priyadarshini Awas
Yojana (PAY). There we met people from Scheduled Caste community of the village. Most of
them were either agricultural labourer or daily wagers. Although they were having bank
accounts, they were not regularly doing the savings due to lack of regular income.
Day 6
We dedicated our sixth day to the farmers of the village. Most of farmers were indulged in
thrashing of the rice. Nearly all of them were having bank accounts, mostly because of
various subsidies flowing in their accounts. They were keen in taking loans but not in
savings. Loans were considered more of a subsidy of government, which need not be repaid.
We explained them about working of a loan and how it is different from subsidy. It was a
great experience talking to them and they were kind enough to offer us to have lunch with
them.
In evening, we asked our BC to take us to young minds of the village, he took us to a small
playground where a game of cricket was going on, which reminded us of our college days.
We interacted with some young lads, they were either dropout from school/college or doing
some kind of vocational trainings. One of them revealed that few years back, he took a loan
to open mobile repair shop but business didnt take off and he couldnt repay the amount.
Day 7
Finally, the last day of our journey had come and we decided to visit the Panchayat office
again and tell the members of panchayat about what we have done so far, so that, they who
are working at ground level may also get some new inputs to already myriad problems of
people living in Chandeni. Lastly met branch manager of Syndicate Bank and thanked him of
his constant support throughout our stay. In a small discussion he had given us some crucial
inputs from what bankers feel should be done for providing better services to the people.
Our BC was kind enough to drop us to the Bus Stand. On our way back to New Delhi, we
were filled with so many thoughts and emotions, we were touched by the hopes of people, the
simplicity of their living and hardships they were facing. This visit from India to Bharat was
overwhelming, giving a completely different prespective which we could have never
imagined while sitting in our desks in Mumbai. In our report we try to present some solution
to problems from our knowledge and journey in RBI so far, so that it may help to bring some
change in the lives of people of Chandeni and the people of my Bharat.
3. The Survey
We used method of field survey to collect the data about the different aspects of financial
inclusion as well as financial awareness. A questionnaire, which was presented to people,
consisted of three parts.
1.
Financial Products
2.
3.
Respondent
Male
Female
Cultivators
Agricultural Labourers
Retired Armed Personal
Teachers
Daily Labourers
Others
Total
s
68
31
16
8
75
63
261
38
24
16
4
48
34
164
30
7
0
4
27
29
97
The following bar chart explains the knowledge of financial products and willingness of the
villagers to invest in them.
79.00%
82.00%
45.00%
62.00%
58.00%
28.00%
Next we focused on 3As of financial inclusion and asked the respondents of the survey about
following three dimensions of financial inclusion.
I.
Availability: Are the banks and other financial institutions available in the nearby
II.
region? If yes, are are products and services offered by them are relevant?
Affordability: Is cost of opening an account in the bank high? How costly are the
III.
We asked respondents to rate a question on scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best representation
of the situation. Shown below is the pictorial representation of the response
4. Probing Deeper
Having spent seven days in Chandeni gave us an insight to varied problems being faced by
the villagers and the opportunities that are present in front of them. After analyzing their
profiles and their knowledge, understanding of financial products, their expectations and
problems, we present in this chapter some recommendations to mitigate their problems. The
stay in the village gave us three unique perspectives- what a villager thinks? What the banker
has in mind? and how we as regulator view the whole situation? We therefore shall try to
recommend solutions from these three perspectives.
4.1.2 Loans and Subsidies are two different things, however many people take loan and
assume the same as subsidy, this happens partly due to unclear communication from bankers
and partly due to overt emphasis in the bank to meet various targets at branch level. A villager
doesnt mind taking such loan and other imitate her.
Example
In a discussion with SHG group of 10 elderly persons, we found that they were contributing
to repay the existing loan so that they can take a loan of large amount with no intention to pay
back.
Recommendation
Strengthening the financial literacy efforts with minute details on part of all the stakeholders
and refraining from pushing financial inclusion beyond a certain absorptive capacity of locals
on part of bankers can go a long way to make locals responsible towards loans repayment.
Conclusion
In the middle of the night, lying awake on Charpai, looking up the skies through holes of the
roof made me think, Is there a better way for these people? Well, there must be.
Chandeni Village has all the ingredients to become a truly inclusive village where villagers
shall have confidence and faith in the financial system, courage to use such system to their
advantage thereby making the financial inclusion a win-win situation for the poor, for the
banks and for the nation. The road from un-bankable to bankable requires a varied, at the
same time coordinated response from the all the stakeholders. When the regulations will be
clear and progressive, when banking will be prudent and imaginative and when people will
be aware and aspirational, then we shall hit the sweet spot of accelerated financial inclusion.
hua sahab!, What happened sir. I said,Dont worry Raghuveer! we have come here to know
about your village. Your house looks beautiful, can you tell us a bit about it? He was more
confident now and replied that since he was poor and fall under BPL, he approached
Assistant DC office and availed PAY and built this house for which he got a financial grant of
` 90100/- (81000/- for house and 9100/- for construction of Sanitary Latrine). As and when he
got his money, which was disbursed in three installments of 25000/- (In advance along with
sanction letter), 35000/- (after construction of house upto lintel level) and 21000/- (On
putting doors and windows in house) he completed the construction of the house. He was
planning to move to his new home in a weeks time after Ghar parvesh with his wife and 2
sons (both of them were enrolled in the village school).