Constraints in availing financial services by agricultural labour households in sub-mountainous zone of Punjab

Financial Inclusion refers to delivery of financial services, at affordable cost, to the lower segments of society. Well-developed financial system includes three aspects; access to financial services, affordability of such services and the utilization of such services. This paper has worked out the constraints that were responsible for availing lesser financial services by agricultural labour households. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select a sample of 100 agricultural labour households for the analysis. It was found that despite possessing bank account by all the households, usage of other financial services was found to be very low. Major problems faced while accessing institutional credit as reported by respondents were lack of assets/ collateral, complicated procedure and provision of inadequate amount. The usage of other financial services was very low. Usage of internet banking and debit/credit cards was found to be nil among the sampled households. Thus, accessibility to financial services of this group needs to be strengthened.