aDepartment of Agricultural Economics, University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore, Karnataka
bDepartment of Agricultural Economics, University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur - 584 104, Karnataka
This study has looked at the financial inclusion drive in the Gulbarga district of Karnataka. Two blocks of Gulbarga district, viz. Shorapur and Gulbarga, which have the highest proportion of BPL population, were selected for the study. The study has shown that 88 per cent of the respondents belong to Hindu religion, 88 per cent of the households did not have a single member who had studied up to high school level, over half the respondents owned some amount of land, and the average landholding amongst holders was about three acres. Over duration of drive, the number of households having bank accounts more than doubled from 12 per cent to 29 per cent across the households surveyed. By the end of the drive, only one-third of households surveyed had access to a bank account. Also, over a third of the households interviewed did not have access to any kind of formal or semi-formal saving mechanism. It appears that of the 168 households that opened accounts during the drive, only 64 reported actually opening zero minimum balance accounts. Additionally, only half of those who opened bank accounts during the drive were financially excluded, that is, the other half were financially included
Financial inclusion, credit, bank account, Gulbarga
