Financial Inclusion in Punjab and Haryana-A Critical Perspective towards NCFE Report through Bhartiya Model of Financial Literacy (BMFL)

Finance is a basic requirement for an individual's growth and development. Access to finance basically to the poor, disadvantaged and unprivileged sections of the society is a major concern nowadays. Large sections of the rural population are still deprived of basic access to the financial services. Reserve Bank of India (RBI) reported that 53% of the Indians have an account at a bank or financial institution but remaining population is still excluded from taking the benefits of financial services that is, financial exclusion. Role of women especially in the making the decisions related to finance is very low. Urban people are more financially literate and included than rural people and that too men's. India is now speedily progressing towards achieving FL so that everyone in the country can have an access to the basic financial services. Various efforts have been made by the Government of India, RBI, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other financial institutions to strengthen the FL (FL) among people. Recently, the impact of demonetisation has impacted everyone and majorly the ones who have earned money through unethical means and minimally on the people who were ethical in their working.

The research paper aims to review the National Centre for Financial Education report and finds that report is not holistic as it is missing cultural and contextual factors to analyse FL and inclusion. Therefore, there is a need to revisit the definition of FL and its parameters to suit the Indian culture and thus Bhartiya Model of FL (BMFL) will help in a better way to assess the FL and inclusion.

The research paper is secondary in nature and the data is collected from NCFE report primarily of Punjab and Haryana regions.

The researchers believe that the outcome of exploring the new path way will be useful for financial education providers, government, National Institute of Securities Market, RBI and banking institutions to frame policies and strategies that would enable financial inclusion, and provide better view of personal financial position of families in the country.

The research paper is original in nature and provides that the new path way may pave way to showcase that India's financial literacy is much better, a model to follow and would help to design curriculum to improve FLin India.