Financial Inclusion and Skoch

Skoch Development Foundation was set up about a year and half back to look at poverty issues.  We have had two interventions directly in this time period. One is we have adopted a little village called Sangram in Arunachal Pradesh at Indo-China border. This is inhabited by Nishi tribals. It is a subsistence economy where we are supporting a school.  The second intervention which we have is in Mohand in Saharanpur where we bring similar educational intervention with the Ban Gujjars. Ban Gujjars are migratory shepherds, and when they travel their children can get educated so we are trying to get a mobile school that travels with them and continue their education. So essentially the whole idea behind setting up the Skoch Development Foundation was (a) to create a think tank which gets into policy issues and (b) also to have a first hand feel of what the felt needs of the poor are and what is it that we can really do to alleviate some of that.

About 6-7 months back during an interaction with the income tax department we got this thinking that if at that level the linkage between poverty alleviation and access to financial services is not clear then perhaps it is not clear in a lot of places where it ought to be clear.  So, it germinated some seeds in our mind on doing a study on speeding financial inclusion or at least clarifying what this whole thing is about.

We started this exercise out of our own resources about four months back. The scope of the study was defined to examine the current status of financial inclusion and to recommend course correctives to speed it up further. There was nothing available so far that looks at this financial inclusion as an issue in three ways – regulatory way, technology way, as well as the business way. What is it that is going to deliver and so on and so forth. So this was the first such study. Our methodology was to organize research meetings. We are thankful to IIT-Mumbai.  Dr Phatak chaired the one at IIT. There was another one which was held at Delhi which was chaired by Secretary(IT) Mr R Chandrasekhar at the India Habitat Centre. We conducted one on one interviews with CEOs of banks and senior practitioners exhaustively. We also conducted an e-discussion on the solution exchange. We called for papers, we did a public literature scan, we did a study of RBI circulars and regulations.

Dr Rangarajan had said “It is equally important to speak from the heart than from the head.”  Skoch Development Foundation is not for profit so if we cannot say the truth, who would!  The simplest way of putting is that financial inclusion is not happening.

Past several years have seen the words 'financial inclusion' and 'inclusive growth' becoming a part of the common man's lexicon as well as a factor in the development agenda cutting across all spectrum. In the same period quite a bit of experimentation has happened across the country and multiple stakeholders have tried to contribute in their own ways - most of these though still qualify as only pilots.

The pickings from these experiments in terms of knowledge, bottlenecks, possible ways forward are immense. There is now a need to take a consolidated view of all the learning, fill in the gaps and suggest a common path moving forward. Our book entitled Financial Inclusion published by the Academic Foundation was released by Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Hon'ble Dy. Chairman of the Planning Commission. The book proposes a model for inclusive growth that argues for inclusive economics and inclusive governance as the way forward for inclusive growth.

Over the years Skoch has taken a comprehensive approach to address issues of financial inclusion by way of round tables, research meetings, seminars, and field visits to capture impacts of financial inclusion. This website is an attempt to provide a single window of information on financial inclusion.

Skoch Development Foundation has been established keeping in view the empowerment and inclusive development needs of society. The Foundation has been established as a "Not for Profit" Company under Section 25 of the Companies Act. This is to ensure transparency, accountability and adherence to corporate governance norms.

The objective of the Foundation is to promote empowerment and inclusive development with emphasis on social, digital and financial inclusion; strengthening of delivery systems and participatory democracy for bringing about a systemic change to help meet development objectives better.

Having done all the above driven by individual zeal and passion, the members now felt the need to create an institutional framework that not only takes this work forward and emerges as a key development institution but also helps in facilitating implementation mechanisms such that the benefits of inclusive development are actually received by society.