Overall financial inclusion, more so for the marginalised people is one of the priorities of the present Indian government. India’s various digital initiatives have provided the necessary impetus to the financial inclusion journey.

“Financial inclusion is essential for people to meet their basic needs and an imperative to advance socio-economic development,” said Permanent Representative of India to the UN, Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj recently.

She said the world is halfway through its journey towards the 2030 Agenda and Sustainable Development Goals targets. “Unfortunately, the report card so far is not good. The SDG Progress Report shows that just 12 per cent of the

“Sustainable Development Goal targets are on track. Progress on 50 per cent is weak and insufficient,” she added.

“We believe India’s financial inclusion journey can be an example for other developing countries to look at,” she added.

India has been making significant efforts to achieve financial inclusion, ensuring that all individuals and businesses have access to formal financial services. As rightly stated by Ambassador Ruchira Kamboj, the government’s policies related to financial inclusion have made millions of people part of the formal financial system.

One can gauge the progress of India’s financial inclusion through the fact that in 2009, only 17 per cent of adults in India had bank accounts, and today more than 80 per cent have bank accounts. Further, as of 2022, over 600 crore digital payment transactions are completed per month.

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) has estimated that progress towards financial inclusion, which would have taken almost half a century had India followed traditional growth processes, was achieved in India in just about ten years.

India is undertaking a series of financial inclusion measures. These include Aadhaar, a biometric database that provides a unique identity to each Indian citizen, no-frills savings bank accounts called Jan Dhan, the direct transfer of social benefit payments into these Jan Dhan accounts, and a digital payment infrastructure called BHIM based on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

Delivering the keynote address at the session attended by senior UN officials, ambassadors, diplomats and analysts, Columbia University Professor and former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog Arvind Panagariya said India played a “pioneering role” in developing the idea of financial inclusion itself.

“Financial inclusion, economic inclusion and growth – they all go hand in hand, and they, in turn, also influence things like health and SDGs. These are all very interrelated, interconnected elements, and there is much that India can offer

today in terms of its own experience to the other developing countries,” Panagariya, who has formerly been India’s G20 Sherpa, said.

“It is critical to inclusive growth and overall economic development. “If we are to achieve SDG goals and 2030 agenda, financial inclusion is inevitable. At its core, financial inclusion is a fundamental element in targeting SDGs. Financial

inclusion is essential for people to meet their basic needs and an imperative to advance socio-economic development,” Kamboj added.

(Source ANI)