SREI Sahaj E village limited operates in rural Orissa. In last 3 years the company is proud to be able to provide a sustainable business model to over 20,000 rural youth. In the ceremony the VLE of Galua Gram Pranchayat Mr. Saroj Kumar Sahoo was given a Brand new Tata Nano for his outstanding performance in E-learning domain. He was instrumental in eliminating the computer illiteracy and garner digital education in his gram Panchayat.
Among the new VLEs 20% are housewives thereby helping in rural woman empowerment. The company connects the remotest parts of Orissa through its technological and human network. With total team strength of 130, SSEVL caters to the need of rural people in its mandated 16 districts by providing about 30 services in the Sahaj CSCs including digital photography, digital video-shoot, various survey, government form submission, data entry , DTP, ROR, EPIC, Internet, IGNOU and Microsoft certified e-Learning courses, electric bill collection , mobile top ups, DTH recharge, railway reservation, General Insurance, Advertising, rural-job portal, examination results, PFRDA, AADHAR U-ID, Banking Correspondence. Financial Inclusion (FI) refers to the delivery of financial services such as banking and insurance at affordable costs to those currently excluded from accessing such services, including the disadvantaged and low income segments of society and those living in rural areas.
On September 28, 2010, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), as part of its Financial Inclusion mandate, announced in the Annual Policy Statement for the year 2010-11, that it has decided to permit banks to engage companies registered under the Indian Companies Act, 1956, excluding Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs), as Business Correspondents (BCs) in addition to the individuals / entities permitted earlier, subject to compliance with its existing guidelines for engaging BCs. Further, the RBI has allowed banks to engage with the CSC Operators / VLEs as BCs. This move was aimed to bring basic banking services to all 73000 unbanked villages with population of over 2000.
Further, on February 15th 2011, Smt. Sonia Gandhi launched the Swabhiman Scheme in New Delhi. The objective the Scheme is to make banking facility available to all citizens and the initial target is to get 5 crore accounts opened by March 2012. The Scheme also ensures loans and other credit facilities for farmers and villagers at subsidized rates.
Information technology plays a key role in delivering financial inclusion services in an affordable and sustainable manner, especially in remote and hard to reach areas. Some of the popular technology models being deployed for banking include the deployment of GPRS enabled micro-ATM devices and internet based kiosk banking solutions. Customers are authenticated using smart cards and or biometric fingerprints. With its existing robust IT Infrastructure & backend support, (including computers, internet connectivity, printer, scanner, web camera, etc.); CSCs are an ideal channel for enabling financial inclusion.
As of November 30th 2011, over 2200 CSCs have already started offering banking services such as account opening, deposit and withdrawal, kissan credit cards, remittances, loans, etc. Efforts are underway to ensure that all CSCs are activated as banking outlets. The Department of Financial Services’ (DFS) via Circular F;No.21/13/2009-FI(Pt), dated 21/10/2011 addressed to all Banks, has mandated that “in order to ensure convergence and to assist viability of BC, it would be necessary that in the villages to be covered, wherever a CSC exists, the CSC is made a business correspondent agent.” Already 18 Service Center Agencies (SCAs) are at various stages of negotiations with banks to become their business correspondents. CSC SPV is also in the final stages of signing business correspondent agreements with State Bank of India and Bank of India.
CSCs as Financial Inclusion Channel
States are playing a critical role in the success of any financial inclusion activity by ensuring electronic benefit transfer of subsidies and providing necessary incentives for CSCs to become BCs. To elaborate, presently, 32 Government of India Schemes (such as MGNREGA, Pensions, Scholarships, etc,) are in operation under which benefits are to be given directly to the beneficiaries by States. To ensure transparency, enhance efficiency and reduce corruption, it has been mandated that such subsidies be transferred directly into beneficiary accounts using Electronic Benefit Transfer facilities. Since such subsidies, are often the main source of income for the unbanked in rural areas, receiving subsidies only through bank accounts provides the strongest incentive for them to start using banking services. States of Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh are leading in disbursing Electronic Benefit Transfers to citizens using the CSC business correspondent channel. Further, states like Maharashtra have also started providing financial subsidy for purchase of Micro-ATM devices to be deployed at CSC that have been selected as BCs. The key to success is to align State financial inclusion mandates with the national mandates being implemented by State Level Banking Committees (SLBCs).
While challenges around lack of power & internet connectivity in the last mile currently being resolved for service delivery, new challenges around customer authentication are emerging. For rural customers, with limited proof of identity, their biometric data can be the most authentic data to recognize them. However, lack of biometric standards and interoperability between technologies adopted by banks are posing challenges for customers to successfully avail of a large number of financial services. Currently, UIDAI in partnership with the National Payments Corporation (NPCI) is working on an Aadhar Enabled Payment System (AEPS), which will allow customers to use their Aadhar number along with biometric to access financial services. DFS along with the Department of Information Technology (DIT) is also working on a proof of concept (POC) to demonstrate interoperable banking transactions based on biometric authentication using internet kiosk banking solutions.
While bringing banking to rural India is the first step in ensuring financial inclusion, providing access to credit and insurance services along with saving instruments is also important. DIT and the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) are already in discussions on how the CSC network can be used to insure rural citizens and businesses. Over 1700 CSCs are already providing insurance services such as policy sale, policy renewal and premium collections. Discussions are also underway to offer pension and mutual fund services through CSCs.
Slowly but surely, CSCs as the leading service delivery channel, is poised to become the center of convergence for delivery of various financial services, emerging as the leading rural financial centers in the country.
No comments:
Post a Comment