since may this year, i have been tracking a plan from the department of financial services to split india into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common banking correspondent company for all public sector banks operating in each cluster. it is a textbook case of policy adventurism. the department, a part of the finance ministry, has not paused to wonder whether putting one company in charge of all financial transactions of the poor — between the government and them, and amongst themselves — can result in that company developing monopolistic tendencies. something that banks themselves are deeply apprehensive about. strangely, alarm bells did not go off inside the department even when the auctions to appoint BCs started, and bids touched unexpectedly low levels.

well. there is good news at the end of all that. as this story reports today…

The government is likely to shoot down the Department of Financial Services’ (DFS) plan to appoint common banking correspondent (BC) companies for transferring cash to poor people and replace it with a country-wide network of ‘micro ATMs’, as it seeks to finalise the last mile payment architecture for cash transfers.

In a meeting on Monday evening, Rural Development Minister Jairam Ramesh, UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani, and Planning Commission officials met Finance Minister P Chidambaram to share their reservations about the common banking correspondent model. An official who attended the meeting told ET that it was agreed in-principle to junk this model but a final decision will be taken by the Finance Minister.

In a SMS to ET, Ramesh confirmed the development. “The DFS model is now history. Women SHG, Ashas, anganwadi workers, post offices, teachers, kirana stores, fertiliser shops, etc, can now be BCs,” he said.

the government is now thinking of using micro-atms, as the nandan nilekani report on micropayments had suggested, to make cash transfers reach across the last mile to targeted beneficiaries. whether these will work or not is an open question as well. but that is another story. to be written after another set of field trips. for now, i am glad that this one cluster, one BC model might be on its way out.