The Reserve Bank of India has stated in its report to the media that
the banking system should be made a fundamental right for the Indian citizen. A
sound idea indeed but then we have several other fundamental rights too of
which we have yet to see their widespread application. It wouldn’t be right to
dwell upon those here.
If banking is made a fundamental right then its implementation has to
be seen everywhere which is where the actual hurdle comes. One of the ways to
make it spread into the remote corners of India is to make it mandatory on the
part of the people to provide a photo copy of their pass book front page for
being eligible for any of the government yojanas and other special national schemes.
Although the voter’s identity card and other stuff might be there the presence
of a person’s pass book front page would make it compulsory for non savers to
have a bank account.
The idea is that once the base for interaction is set (bank versus customer),
then banking facilities and special schemes could be conveyed to the customers
with ease. The bank on their part should not charge a minimum balance and if at
all should provide a minimum balance of Rs50 to Rs 100 in the interiors of the
country where they have never seen a bank official but only the money lender.
Banks on their part would find it quite difficult to explain everything
to an adamant villager yet they can do well to entreat them with a few offers.
All this surely wouldn’t remove the money lender from the scene as they already
have made a deep relationship with the people. The banks here keep only a
professional approach and try their best to spread their good word around with
concrete examples. The money lender is more or less like a blood relation to
the customer in the deep rural belt. He howls when his client is sorrowful
during a death and exalts all the virtue under the sun when there is a birth.
The bank officials can never do this kind of psychological marketing when
relationships count more than money however awkward and ugly it may look.
Yet money will dominate especially when reason starts to bloom in a
helpless customer and the low interest would triumph any other passions. The
bank then only has to extend a helping hand and this would start the first step
of publicity.
But all this starts with the mandatory requirement of the first page of
the bank pass book which carries the address of the bank, the customer’s name
and the bank branch code number.
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