You might have expected Reserve Bank of India Governor D. Subbarao to ponder over the country's economic problems and banks' fund needs sitting at his freshly furnished swanky office a day before he brings out now what is known as the mid-quarter monetary policy review.
Subbarao had something else in his mind. He landed up instead at a dusty village, 40 km west of Ranchi.
"But you don't get to know how people are affected by RBI's policies sitting in Mumbai. Isn't it?" Subbarao asked in broken Hindi to an audience of villagers at what the financial regulator calls an outreach programme where few state-run banks put up stalls to showcase products of self-help groups they support and also the technologies they are using to achieve the seemingly elusive target of financial inclusion.
And it was a lesson on the limits of financial inclusion for the Governor.
The outreach programme had various technology providers demonstrating how their hand-held devices armed with biometric identification feature can act as a bank branch for the largely un-banked villagers who mostly depend on a single crop paddy with no access to irrigation, and some sundry forest products.
A villager, after being shown how he can withdraw Rs 100 from his account using that hand-held device, gingerly showed the receipt to Subbarao. “Just 300 rupees! Why? You should keep more money in your account!” a shocked Subbarao asked the villager looking at his account balance.
At a loss for a reply, the villager climbed down the stage with a dry smile. “Welcome to Bharat!” a banker in the audience retorted with a grin.
A hand-held device wouldn't possibly raise your income in hand, the banker might have thought.
The government, the RBI, and independent thinkers might now have to come up with more ideas for financial inclusion.
"Here people wait for months to encash their NREGA cheques so they trade in them: A Rs 100 cheque is sold for Rs 70,” said A.K. Singh, Jharkhand's chief secretary, who was on the podium along with Subbarao.
The rate of cheque-discounting could be a unhappy lesson for Subbarao apart from the very need for a government-given cheque to be discounted in the first place.
From Bharat to India, the journey on the dirt road appears quite long.
