Can financial inclusion be a reality in India? exploring the prospects of India post

Almost one decade is going to elapse, since the concept of financial inclusion became an official commitment of the central banker of the country as well as the government. Despite the much professed generosity of the conventional mainstream banks and the vibrant new generation banks, with ‘inclusive windows’, the agenda is yet to be resolved fully. In this backdrop, the present paper attempts to examine the profile of banking system to have an introspection to acknowledge the unfinished agenda of financial inclusion and explore the potential of India Post to plug in the hither to left-out target group. The structural composition and spatial distribution of India Post are seemed to be obvious evidence of a best-fit organizational architecture to cover an extra mile, offering various financial products suiting to the underprivileged people, sans any upfront infrastructure development expenses. The paper critically examines the financial services of the India Post with intent to find out the merit of it, in the light of its recent failure to obtain banking license from the RBI.