The Government has constituted a “Committee on Financial Inclusion”, under the Chairmanship of Dr. C. Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister. The Committee has submitted its Interim Report.
Based on its recommendations, two funds, viz, a “Financial Inclusion Fund”, with NABARD for meeting the cost of developmental and promotional interventions and a “Financial Inclusion Technology Fund”, to meet the costs of technology adoption, are to be constituted.The overall corpus of the new FIF will be 2000 crore rupees.
Contribution of GOI, RBI and NABARD was in the ration 40:40:20
Objectives of FIF
- To enhance financial inclusion on a large scale
- To support promotional and development activities
- Increased technological absorption capacity
- To provide ICT solutions
- To increase stakeholder capacity building
Eligible Institutions to get FIF
1 Financial Institutions, viz., Commercial Banks, Regional Rural Banks, Cooperative Banks and NABARD.
2 Eligible institutions with whom banks can work for seeking support from the FIF:-
- NGOs
- SHGs
- Farmer’s Clubs –
- Functional Cooperatives
- I.T. enabled rural outlets of corporate entities.
- Well-functioning Panchayats
- Rural Multipurpose kiosks / Village Knowledge Centers
- Common Services Centres (CSCs) established by Service Centre Agencies (SCAs) under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
- Primary Agricultural Societies (PACs).
Need for FIF
♦To create awareness among people about financial inclusion
♦To set up financial literary centres at every block level
♦To cater to the services of Jan Dhan Yojana account holder
♦To set up standard kiosks to create financial literacy in gram panchayats
♦The Kiosks will be highly interactive to educate the masses
