Monday, November 28, 2011

No bride if you don't groom a bank account

CHANDIGARH: If you're not having an active bank account, don't expect a bride. This was the advice RBI governor Dr Duvvuri Subbarao half-jokingly and half-seriously gave to parents of girls looking for grooms.

Dr Rao was in the city to deliver the Haksar memorial lecture at the Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development ( CRRID), a government supported research institute of social sciences.

Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Dr Rao, recalled his induction days in the IAS in early 1970s. The governor said all his batch mates at Mussourie were sent on field investigations and one of his women colleagues was intrigued to find that parents of girls in Punjab and Haryana refused to marry their daughters to boys whose villages did not have drinking water.

Subbarao said his colleague reported the matter while sharing her experiences. The parents of the girls thought their daughters will have to undertake drudgery everyday just to arrange water.

He then said that if they really want the well-being of their daughter, they now have a new indicator--whether the groom has an active bank account or not.

The RBI governor explained how a financially excluded person may find it difficult to get loans and government's help under social schemes.

Dr Rao said just 5% of Indians have bank accounts but most of them don't operate their accounts. Even commercial banks consider financial inclusion as an obligation and not as an opportunity.

Financial inclusion is going to help the poor, the banks in terms of fund flow and the economy that can take care of its poor people in a transparent manner, he said.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your comment