Forty-eight-year-old Devashekhar cultivates paddy twice a year. A resident of Guntur district in Andhra Pradesh, India, Devashekar purchases between 300 and 350 kg of fertiliser from retailers in his village. He is among many farmers who have now started to pay market price for fertiliser. “There has been a reduction in overcharging by retailers as… Continue reading
The Green Revolution, probably the greatest achievement of post-independence India, heralded an era of food sufficiency riding on the use of chemical fertilisers. Now, 50 years on, soil health is rapidly declining. There is ample evidence to show that indiscriminate use of fertilisersis the major cause of deteriorating soil health. Indian farmers apply around 66… Continue reading
India Post has extensive outreach in rural areas of Jharkhand with 13 Head Post Offices (HPOs), 454 Sub Post Offices (SPOs) and 2,643 Branch Post Office (BPOs).[1] With 3,097 (454 SPOs + 2,643 BPOs) outlets present in rural and semi-urban areas, India Post has a reach of at least one outlet for every two of the… Continue reading
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is now the world’s most successful financial inclusion scheme. This blog highlights the supply-side findings (specifically focused on Bank Mitrs (BMs) or bank agents) of the final round of MicroSave’s PMJDY assessment (Wave III) conducted in December 2015. The BM network is the backbone of PMJDY scheme. The… Continue reading
In the first part of this blog, we discussed the demand-side findings of PMJDY Wave III survey conducted by MicroSave in December 2015. The blog highlights the positive impact of the PMJDY scheme on the financial behaviour of rural customers. Rural customers, including women, have enthusiastically contributed to the success of the scheme and have… Continue reading
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) is now the world’s most successful financial inclusion scheme. The scheme envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one bank account for every household, in addition to access to credit, insurance, and pension facilities. As of March 15, 2016, the scheme has mobilised approximately INR 335 billion… Continue reading
Sheetal, a 41 year-old widow, is a vegetable hawker and lives by herself in Mumbai. She wanted to expand her business by adding more stock and buying a new wheel-cart. She has a bank account, opened under the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana. She could not avail credit from her bank for lack of any… Continue reading
