LEAD BANK SCHEME – A STRATEGY FOR ACHIEVING FINANCIAL INCLUSION

Abstract

As per Reserve Bank of India, Financial inclusion can be called as facilitating financial and banking services to the low income group people especially in rural areas in a very low transaction cost. But the presence of Commercial Banks will not be possible in the unreached segments of all the districts in our country. Therefore Reserve bank of India has recommended to adopt Lead Bank Scheme in all the districts of our country to meet the credit needs of the rural people and improve the credit structure in lending priority sectors. This study has investigated the performance of various districts of Tamil Nadu as well as its corresponding lead banks towards implementing financial inclusion under lead bank scheme. The study has adopted secondary data by considering the district name, Lead Banks, Achievement of Number of Bank Accounts and Amount credited for the priority sectors like agriculture, small scale industries, etc. The study has also ranked and highlighted the district name that has achieved the highest percentage of bank accounts in its Lead Bank.