Financial inclusions or exclusions?

We all constantly hear about financial inclusion and how important it is to take all with us on the growth path, higher up the economic ladder. Many states do their bit but it is only some who actually manage to achieve this, at least to some extent. And this is something which Modi has also been talking about.

But a recent survey on financial inclusion in India, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and conducted by InterMedia India, tells us a different story. The InterMedia survey done with a sample size of 45,024 individuals aged above 15, was conducted in the four month period between October 2013 and January 2014. Apparently, Gujarat, along with Bihar, Orissa and the North Eastern states, lags significantly. In fact Gujarat comes right at the bottom on terms of percentage of adults below poverty line having active digital accounts and percentage of rural women with active accounts. Even Bihar comes ahead of Gujarat on these two parameters.

And in terms of toppers of this list, surprisingly, it is Goa which emerges a winner across all parameters in the survey. States such as Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh have done significantly in terms of enrolling more people into the formal banking system.

The survey also revealed another statistics- when it came to bribing to receive direct payments, Karnataka and Kerala topped, at 32% and 25% respectively. And Kerala is supposedly the only 1005 literate state of India – thus bribe and education have no connection; it all boils down to attitude.