Financial Inclusion
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a small update on jan dhan yojana
a quick and dirty story on jan dhan yojana. The aggregate numbers are designed to impress — 6.99 crore accounts have already been opened since PM Narendra Modi launched Jan Dhan Yojana on Independence Day, according to pmjdy.gov.in, a government website. But several concerns lie hidden beneath those numbers. Continue reading
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day one of jan dhan yojana
i reported for this story on the first day of jan dhan yojana. while the media exults over its success in opening over a crore accounts on day one, cracks in the model are already visible. cynical tokenism, all this. Continue reading
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the new, new contours of financial inclusion
from the et special issue on modi sarkar completing 100 resplendent days in power, this story on financial inclusion… Every two years, India’s financial inclusion drive reformats itself into a brand new, entirely unrecognisable avatar. Till about three years ago, it starred banks, the Reserve Bank of India and banking correspondent companies. Then came DBTs… Continue reading
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a big setback for aadhaar
The finance ministry has decided to limit Aadhaar’s role in its welfare scheme payments and, instead, use ATM-enabled RuPay cards for last-mile authentication to withdraw money. While it will continue to use Aadhaar for opening accounts and to eliminate ghosts and duplicates from beneficiary rolls, the ministry has decided to give RuPay ATM cards with… Continue reading
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RBI opposes NDA financial inclusion plan
The new financial inclusion push, Sampoorn Vittiyea Samaveshan, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to unveil on August 15 does not quite have the central bank on its side. Top government sources told ET that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) was in disagreement with three critical elements of the drive. it opposed… Continue reading
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the latest question on aadhaar
…While researching this story, ET reviewed two drafts produced by the Department of Financial Services – one in June, and the second in July. The draft dated 8 July, 2014, says: “This account would be linked with the Aadhaar number of the account holder and would become the single point for receipt of Direct Benefit… Continue reading
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nilekani meets modi, saves aadhaar
There is enough evidence to suggest that the crucial July 1 meeting between Nilekani, the prime minister and the FM, brought forth a volte face in the government stand on UIDAI. Only two days before this, on July 3, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Telecom, IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Planning Minister Rao… Continue reading
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the bandhan experiment
early in april, the rbi surprised most financial sector watchers by granting a banking license to bandhan, a microlender with most of its operations in eastern india. in a story out today, my colleague atmadip and i take a closer look at this decision. and say that this is a high stakes experiment — for… Continue reading
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the upa puts dbt-lpg on hold
out today, this story by my colleague yogima seth and me on a surprise decision by the upa to pause its DBT programme for LPG. The government’s decision to put the Aadhaar-based direct benefit transfer (DBT) for cooking gas on hold could be a blow to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), set up… Continue reading
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Dudu. Redux.
in october 2012, i had travelled to a tehsil in rajasthan called dudu where the congress formally announced that direct benefit transfers would be its magic bullet for the coming elections — in the state and nationally. well, i just reported for a story by my colleague akshay deshmane on the role of DBT in… Continue reading
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on the nachiket mor committee’s financial inclusion report…
Last week, when the Nachiket Mor committee released its report on financial inclusion, it created a flutter. It was ambitious. In a country which is still struggling to provide banking facilities to most of its poorer citizens, the committee set aggressive targets. By January 1, 2016, it said, every Indian over 18 should have a… Continue reading
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the promises and perils of using databases for welfare delivery
Imagine a database that contains the following data about your family. Household level information like address, caste, asset ownership, the kind of house you live in, when you came to the city/village where you now stay, ration card number, etc. And individual level information about including names, ages, educational background, occupation, incomes, bank accounts, existing… Continue reading
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enter, contingent liability
The government’s plan to make the Aadhaar number the centrepiece of the cash-transfer system is now facing opposition from a new quarter: banks. Several banks, led by State Bank of India, have expressed reservation against jettisoning their current systems in favour of the platform created by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which issues… Continue reading
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india’s payments dilemma. continued.
The Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission (FSLRC) could recommend that the Reserve Bank of India should grant limited purpose bank licences to telecom firms and other industries in order to promote financial inclusion. A working group led by Morgan Stanley India chairman PJ Nayak, tasked by the Commission to propose changes to the country’s payment… Continue reading
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in which upa races towards its india shining moment
D-day is 18 days away. On January 1, the Congress-led UPA government will start migrating the delivery of welfare services to a new architecture: straight into an individual’s bank account, verified by a unique identification (UID) number called Aadhaar. It’s a soft launch. The first of the three stages will unravel in 43 districts where… Continue reading
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The End of the Silly Common Banking Correspondent Model?
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,… Continue reading
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an update on cash transfers
today’s et carries this small piece on cash transfers. the significant dataset here is a list of the 51 districts where cash transfers will be rolled out first. take a look? Continue reading
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In which the Banking Correspondent Auctions finally go below the psychological zero percent margin mark…
for a while now, i have been reporting on the never-ending happiness that is the finance ministry’s “one cluster, one BC” model — essentially, to split india into 20 clusters and then to have one common banking correspondent company for all public sector banks operating in each cluster. this company would then be the only… Continue reading
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another update on the common BC auctions
close to four months after the finance ministry decided to split the country into 20 clusters and to appoint a common banking correspondent for all public sector banks in each cluster, how are things coming along? the latest update, here. Continue reading
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the banking correspondent auctions resume
after a brief hiatus, the reverse auctions to choose common banking correspondents (see innumerable posts below) have resumed. the latest update. Continue reading
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Another update on the banking correspondent auctions
A newly-formed association of banking correspondent (BC) companies has criticised the finance ministry’s ongoing plan to split India into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common BC company for all public sector banks operating in each cluster. In a white paper released on Thursday night, the Business Correspondent Network Managers (BCNM) Forum, a grouping of… Continue reading
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On the banking correspondent auctions…
for some time now, ET has been reporting on a worrying move by the philosopher kings in the department of financial services (the offshoot of the finance ministry tasked with managing the banking sector) to overhaul the banking correspondent (BC) model. well, the auctions to appoint common BCs for all public sector banks in a… Continue reading
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part four: orissa
words fail me. it is now, sigh, 0.11%. that is what a bangalore-based company called strategic outsourcing services has bid to clinch a tender to become the common banking correspondent for all public sector banks in orissa. Continue reading
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part three: chhattisgarh
the latest update on the finance ministry’s one cluster, one banking correspondent model: FINO has become the BC for chhattisgarh. Continue reading
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes. part two: jharkhand
about a month ago, i wrote about a controversial plan by the finance ministry to split the country into 20 clusters, and to appoint a common banking correspondent company for all public sector banks in each. to understand the attendant implications, please click here. yesterday, the second tender in this series was awarded. it went… Continue reading
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biometrics, banks and this seemingly ignored question of data security
In the beginning, only the National Population Register – and, a little later, Nandan Nilekani’s Unique Identification Authority of India – were supposed to capture and store biometrics. However, over the past few months, India has come to a point where myriad central ministeries, state departments and others are camping in the country’s villages and… Continue reading
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of banks, state firmans, bids and outcomes
it is official. the bidding process to find a common banking correspondent company for all of maharashtra is over. vakrangee has won with a bid so low banking correspondent companies can scarcely believe it. see this, this and this for context. now to see how well this new approach works. Continue reading
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SBI, RFPs, Maharashtra…
i wrote out another small update for the et website today on how the finance ministry plan to choose one common BC for all public sector banks in maharashtra is coming along. Continue reading
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bidding starts for maharashtra
out today, a small online followup to a story i filed last week — about the finance ministry deciding that India should be split into 20 clusters, and that all public sector banks in each cluster should appoint a common BC for servicing their rural/poor customers. Continue reading
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Ctrl:Alt:Del
Today’s Economic Times carries this story about an unexpectedly large change that is sweeping across the Bank-BC model. The Department of Financial Services, the part of the Finance Ministry which looks after the banking sector, has decided to split the country into 20 clusters and get all public sector banks in that region to work… Continue reading
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a friend turned foe?
Anyone watching the telecast of the 2012-13 budget would have concluded that the Finance Ministry was solidly backing Nandan Nilekani’s Unique Identification Authority of India. The budget speech mentioned Nilekani by name. It mentioned the UID programme ten-odd times. And spoke about how Aadhaar would be used to overhaul existing subsidy regimes in India —… Continue reading
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uidai: bouquets, brickbats and bugbears
while i was out bobbing in the bottle green waters of lakshadweep’s lagoons — see previous post — this story on the uidai came out. Barely six months ago, UIDAI was under siege-not just from civil society activists, but also from other parts of the government. The home ministry, one of whose arms was undertaking… Continue reading
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haryana’s tryst with e-payments
Haryana is one of the first states in India to move towards e-payments of welfare programmes. Early last year, it began stopped disbursing its social sector pensions through sarpanches, and began using banks and banking correspondents instead. However, after six or so months, the state government called off the project and went back to the… Continue reading
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Some questions about the Banking Correspondent model
These are the heydays for the banking-correspondent (BC) model. Banks want to use them to extend banking into villages. The government wants to use them to deliver welfare payments. In this followup to the financial inclusion story late last month, i argue that this confidence being reposed in the BC model is a tad premature. Continue reading
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On India’s Gambit to Get Everyone a Bank Account
First, the good news. Over the past few years, India has been moving rather aggressively towards bringing all Indians under the banking fold. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that 480 million Indians, about 96 million households, did not have access to banking as recently as 4/5 years ago. Well, since then, after some pushing… Continue reading
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Why the Banking Correspondent companies are unhappy with the UIDAI
Today’s ET carries this story about the ongoing tussle between the UIDAI, the body tasked with developing the architecture for delivering cash transfers, and the banking correspondent companies, which will have to do a part of the actual delivery. Broadly, the UIDAI thinks villagers should be able to access their bank account through any BC… Continue reading
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india’s inchoate journey towards cash transfers
and, at long last, a good combative story. A World Bank study released earlier this year enumerated the rot in Indian welfare programmes. About 91% of subsidised grain meant for the poor in Bihar never reached them. Only 32-51 % of the pensions for the elderly, destitute, widows and the disabled reached them. These are holes… Continue reading
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Arcadia, Utopia…
It’s a polarised debate. Always has been. Those who make a living expanding the possibilities of technology feel it can solve many economic ills, even those of the India that lives on 20 a day under the trembling glow of a lantern. And those who engage with that very India say technology solutions are fine,… Continue reading
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The Thanjavur Pilots
for two years now, a quiet experiment on how to deliver financial services to india’s rural masses has been underway in and around the ancient temple town of thanjavur, tamil nadu. travel through the villages of pattukottai, thanjavur and kumbakonam and you will see branches — 57 of them — of a local “bank” called… Continue reading
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financial inclusion puzzles
Three decades after Independence, most poor Indians still lack institutionalised access to insurance, savings, remittances and loans. The outcomes are predictable. Migrant labour, carrying hard cash when they head back home, run the risk of being robbed. The poor rely excessively on loans to cope with a crisis — accidents, unpredictable weather, sick cattle —… Continue reading
I am an Indian journalist with interests in energy, environment, climate and India’s ongoing slide into right-wing authoritarianism. My book, Despite the State, an examination of pervasive state failure and democratic decay in India, was published by Westland Publications, India, in January 2021. My work has won the Bala Kailasam Memorial Award; the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award; and five Shriram Awards for Excellence in Financial Journalism. Write to me at despitethestate@protonmail.com.
Reviews
“…une plongée dans les failles béantes de la démocratie indienne, un compte rendu implacable du dysfonctionnement des Etats fédérés, minés par la corruption, le clientélisme, le culte de la personnalité des élus et le capitalisme de connivence. (…a dive into the gaping holes in Indian democracy, a relentless account of the dysfunction of the federated states, undermined by corruption, clientelism, the cult of the personality of elected officials and crony capitalism).” Le Monde
“…a critical enquiry into why representative government in India is flagging.” Biblio
“…strives for an understanding of the factors that enable governments and political parties to function in a way that is seemingly hostile to the interests of the very public they have been elected to serve, a gross anomaly in an electoral democracy.” Scroll.in
“M. Rajshekhar’s deeply researched book… holds a mirror to Indian democracy, and finds several cracks.” The Hindu
“…excels at connecting the local to the national.” Open
“…refreshingly new writing on the play between India’s dysfunctional democracy and its development challenges…” Seminar
“A patient mapping and thorough analysis of the Indian system’s horrific flaws…” Business Standard (Image here)
“33 മാസം, 6 സംസ്ഥാനങ്ങൾ, 120 റിപ്പോർട്ടുകൾ: ജനാധിപത്യം തേടി മഹത്തായ ഇന്ത്യൻ യാത്ര… (33 months, 6 states, 120 reports: Great Indian journey in search of democracy…)” Malayala Manorama
“Hindustan ki maujooda siyasi wa maaashi soorat e hal.” QindeelOnline
“What emerges is the image of a state that is extractive, dominant, casteist and clientelist.” Tribune
“…reporting at its best. The picture that emerges is of a democracy that has been hijacked by vested interests, interested only in power and pelf.” Moneycontrol.com
Book lists
“Ten best non-fiction books of the year“, The Hindu.
“Twenty-One Notable Books From 2021“, The Wire.
“What has South Asia been reading: 2021 edition“, Himal Southasian
Interviews
“Journalism is a social enterprise…,” Booksfirst.in.
“Democratic decay at state level: Journalist M Rajshekhar on book ‘Despite the State’,” The News Minute.
“Covid-19 en Inde : “des décès de masse” dont un “État obscurantiste est responsable,” Asialyst.
Allusions/Mentions
“JP to BJP: The Unanswered Questions“.
Mahtab Alam’s review of “JP to BJP: Bihar After Lalu and Nitish”.
“Urban History of Atmospheric Modernity in Colonial India“. Mohammad Sajjad’s review of “Dust and Smoke: Air Pollution and Colonial Urbanism, India, c1860-c1940”.
“Westland closure: Titles that are selling fast and a few personal recommendations,” by Chetana Divya Vasudev, Moneycontrol. (Because this happened too. In February, a year after DtS was released, Amazon decided to shutter Westland, which published the book. The announcement saw folks rushing to buy copies of Westland books before stocks run out.)
“Time to change tack on counterinsurgency” by TK Arun, The Federal.
“All Things Policy: The Challenges of Governing States” by Suman Joshi and Sarthak Pradhan, Takshashila Institute (podcast).
“The Future of Entertainment“, Kaveree Bamzai in Open.
“On What India’s Watching“, Prathyush Parasuraman on Substack.
“The puppeteers around us“, Karthik Venkatesh in Deccan Herald.
“Will TN election manifestos continue ‘populist’ welfare schemes?“, Anna Isaac for The News Minute.
“Why wages-for-housework won’t help women“, V Geetha in Indian Express.
“The poor state of the Indian state“, Arun Maira in The Hindu.
Book discussions
27 May, 2023: Safe Spaces/Why Indians live despite the state. TEDx Bangalore.
12 November, 2022: Stop Loss: Overcoming the systemic failures of the Indian State. Tata Literature Festival, Mumbai.
26 December, 2021: Rangashankara, Bangalore, a discussion with Dhanya Rajendran.
16 November: Rachna Books, Gangtok, a discussion with Pema Wangchuk.
29 August: Books In The Time of Chaos, with Ujwal Kumar.
21 May: Hyderabad Lit Fest with Kaveree Bamzai and Aniruddha Bahal.
28 March: Paalam Books, Salem, Tamil Nadu.
19 March: The News Minute, “Citizens, the State, and the idea of India“
6 March: Pen@Prithvi, with Suhit Kelkar
20 February: A discussion between scholars Usha Ramanathan, Tridip Suhrud, MS Sriram and me to formally launch Despite the State.
6 February: DogEars Bookshop, Margoa.
5 February: The Polis Project, Dispatches with Suchitra Vijayan.
30 January: Founding Fuel, “Systems Thinking, State Capacity and Grassroots Development“.
25 January: Miranda House Literary Society
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