The role of banks in financial inclusion and its impact on upliftment of rural masses a study of mathura region of uttar pradesh

Abstract

The majority of India lives in a village and rural people are dependent on agriculture. The government of India and regional rural banks have started several initiatives which are helpful for rural people in their inclusive growth. Financial inclusion in India plays an important role and bridges the gap between rich and poor people. The role of the bank is also important for providing financial services to the needy people at a reasonable cost. There are various financial literacy programs offered by the government of India that focus on the awareness of financial banking system. The nearby villages of 4 tehsils of Mathura district were considered as the target population in this research study and a total of 450 respondents participated through structured questionnaire. This study focuses on the upliftment of rural population through financial inclusion to examine the level of awareness, bank s role in promoting financial inclusion, access/ use of financial services and also examine the upliftment through financial inclusion in terms of social, economic, psychological, and political parameters. This study shows that majority of the respondents are aware about the existence of branches of banks near their places, debit/credit cards facilities in the bank. There are very few respondents who were not clear about the awareness of loan facilities in the banks. Moreover, the study shows that the bank s role is significant in promoting financial inclusion. Majority of the respondents agree that level of income, knowledge of financial services and education affects the access/use of financial services. On the other hand, research shows that there is an upliftment of rural respondents through social parameters, economic parameters, psychological parameters, and political parameters. The findings of this research implies that rural population are familiar with some of the financial services offered to them. The important part of this study is the rural population knows banking parameters which is very remarkable.