Policy Recommendations for Better Future

This study was focussed to examine impact of recent financial inclusion schemes on poorest of the poor people in Lucknow and Kolkata. The schemes have been implemented after 2014 to address the issues of financial exclusion among these unbanked population across the country. The schemes are PMJDY, MUDRA, PMJJBY, PMSBY and APY. Government is claiming that they have opened 35.27 crore PMJDY account till 2019–20 in every household across the country but these accounts are mostly dormant accounts people are not using them. The other benefits of the scheme such as overdraft facility, direct bank transfers have not achieved significant growth since its inception. Similarly, the MUDRA scheme which was drafted to provide loans to small business the total amount disbursed in 2015–16 is 132,954.73 crores and reached 89,934.72 crores in 2020–21. But in case of poorest of the poor these schemes, again didn’t show any inclusion of ultra-poor. The social security Schemes like PMJJBY the number of claims received from 2015–16 are 22,212 crores and reached 35,997 crores in 2017–18. Under PMSBY the number of claims disbursed from 2015–16 are 2757 crores reached the mark of 15,746 crores respectively and the assets under management 506 crores in 2016 are reached to 12,696 crores in 2020. All these bigger claims from government didn’t show any performance at ground level. So, this study was incorporated to check the impact of financial inclusion schemes on ultra-poor in Lucknow and Kolkata. The understand financial inclusion and exclusion we have followed in depth literature review and theoretical bases to understand the aspects of financial inclusion.