Efficacy Of Business Correspondents in Select Districts of Tamilnadu

S Siddharthan; Dr C Yogalakshmi

Volume : VI, Issue : II, February - 2016

Efficacy Of Business Correspondents in Select Districts of Tamilnadu

S Siddharthan, Dr C Yogalakshmi

Abstract :

Several socio–economic development programmes have been implemented to alleviate poverty, generate more employment and income and provide social security for the people who are under– privileged and economically weakerin India since independence in 1947. The primary objective was to improve the standard of living through creation of income generating activities besides granting government grants to support their livelihood activities.Finance has been the integral part in these schemes to transform the weaker section into economically stronger one.Most of the schemes were implemented through Banks mainly after nationalization of banks in India. A strong and effective financial system is essential for such transformation. Lack of access to financial services and products by the downtrodden people in India is one of the chief reasons for the lacklustre results in post–implementation. This impediment has engaged the attention of policy makers, regulators and other stakeholders. Several measures have been introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Government of India. All Banks especially Public Sector Banks (PSBs) began the new initiative of engaging Business Correspondents (BC) to deliver banking services and products to the people in remote, unbanked areas. This paper explains the challenges faced by BCs, their expectations from banks to perform at a higher scale and future growth. The relevant data for the study has been collected from data issued by the RBI, Government of India, working papers issued by IIM, research articles, website as well as survey conducted with BCs in two districts in Tamil Nadu (primary data).