Bharat’s financial empowerment gets a leg-up

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Financialising India is a mission which is now slowly manifesting into reality, thanks to the power of Internet. Direct benefit transfer (DBT) schemes have been able to cut out pilferages and the eRUPI initiative, launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, is expected to provide further impetus.

Technology was once considered to be the ‘preserve of the rich’ but it is now being used to bridge the inequality gap.

A country like India needs to harness the power of technology to eliminate last-mile barriers and DBT has been able to address years of complaints of woeful implementation of government-sponsored schemes.

Growth in Internet penetration is a welcome sign as the central bank aims to ensure financial inclusion does not remain a lip service.

The government’s plans of providing Wi-Fi hotspots and fibre-to-home connections in the hinterland have received an overwhelming response with over 1.3 million users registering and over two million households are expected to benefit from this scheme by the end of this year.

Until June, over 1,00,000 panchayats consumed over 13,000 TB of data. In 2020, the total data consumption was 6,000 TB while, in July 2019, it was a meagre 300-400 TB.

Along with technology, it is essential that citizens are comfortable and self-sufficient in doing transactions in digital modes. Financial literacy cannot be achieved merely by propagating the schemes and its benefits.

Only sustained efforts will result in ensuring success at the ground level. It must be noted though that the centres for financial literacy have an important role to play in achieving the ultimate goal of financial inclusion as they seek to educate farmers, women artisans and small merchants about the benefits of using digital modes of payments.

Financial literacy enables citizens to make informed choices with regards to various facets of financial services.

In our quest to become a superpower, rural India cannot be left behind, instead it should be the flag bearer.