UID Project in India – Catalytic in achieving Inclusion
One of the key policy issues that the Unique Identification Authority of India hopes to address with the envisioned UID is bringing Inclusion with Micropayments. The linked pdf is a working paper released by the Planning Commission and I suggest that the readers skim through it once.
It starts off with a brief on the transformation that India has undergone from limited access to open access economy in the past twenty years. The report also gives financial exclusion levels in rural India and the lost economic opportunity that comes attached to it.
Some innovative policy initiatives undertaken to mitigate the problem of financial services in India are – no-frills account, branchless banking in the form of Business Correspondents (I have previously covered BCs here), liberalization of banking and ATM policies and the incorporation of National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) which provides a national infrastructure for payments and settlements in the country. Technological advancements have been providing a solid base to leverage all the initiatives.
