PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL INCLUSION FUND AND FINANCIAL INCLUSION TECHNOLOGY FUND: A MEASURE OF FINANCIAL INCLUSION IN INDIA

Abstract

Agriculture sector is an important sector of the Indian economy. The proportion of agricultural sector in GDP is 14%. It provides employment to nearly 70% of the people in India. Agriculture sector plays significant role in the country and nearly 67% of the population depends on agriculture directly or indirectly. Since the superior role of this sector and importance of the credit as an input, a multi-agency approach has been considered by RBI for ensuring credit flow to the sector. Making institutional credit available to a large number of farmers, particularly small and marginal farmers, continues to be challenge to the banking industry. Financing for agriculture has been an enormous task for banks, given the outrange of the credit requirements on the one hand and vision of nature on the other. Both RBI and NABARD have taken several initiatives for simplification of systems and procedures and designing of innovative credit delivery products in distribution of agricultural credit. In these circumstances, the core activities to carry forward the agenda of financial inclusion of the excluded population at the national level as per the framework described by the Report of the Committee on Financial Inclusion in general and operationalizing the Financial Inclusion Fund (FIF) and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund (FITF), in particular. The implementation is under the guidance of the two Advisory Boards set up for FIF and FITF respectively. In the present study, an attempt is made to analyze the progress financial inclusion fund and financial inclusion technology fund for economic development of India