The
public discourse on financial inclusion certainly
calls for a need for a far deeper perspective on the
current status of credit penetration and financial
exclusion across all geographies and population segments
in the country. Therefore, an effort is being made
to discuss the perspective on the basis of banking
figures as on 31-03-2008 and from growth trends during
a five-year period from 31-3-2003 to 31-3-2008 from
the quarterly data provided by the Reserve Bank of
India (RBI) at various geographical and demographic
segments. The quarterly bulletin of the RBI coupled
with Basic Statistical Return (BSR) data of Volume
36 of the RBI is a very comprehensive data base and
is used as a source to review the deposit and credit
penetration across all demographic segments of the
country in this write-up. Table 1 sums up the growth
of the banking industry during the last five years.
The
banking industry's total business increased from Rs.
2,037,877 cr to Rs. 5,623,383 cr in the last five
years with the addition of 7,890 branches. During
the period, the economy grew at the rate of 8%-plus,
thus, increasing the banking industry size by 275%.
With 9%-plus growth aimed in the next 10 years, the
banking industry growth is expected to double in every
four years. The Credit-Deposit (CD) ratio increased
from 60% to 74%.
|
