Innovation and Management by Regional Rural Banks in Achieving the Dream of Financial Inclusion in India: Challenges and Prospects.

Abstract

The Regional Rural Banks are government-owned, regionally based and rurally oriented financial institutions specialized in catering to the credit needs of the neglected and weaker sections of the society. In the recent past, RRBs have become a potent mediator for financial inclusion in rural areas. This paper summarizes the innovative methods used by the employees of these banks in deposit mobilizations, credit expansion and recovery of the loan. The primary purpose of the research is to find the problems faced by officials of these banks in marketing their services to the rural customer. The opinions of these bank officials regarding the above factors and the functioning of these banks and their impact on society have also been studied. For this purpose, a sample of 96 bank officials of Aryavart bank and Purvanchal Bank have been taken from the rural areas of Uttar Pradesh. Methodological tools of the research methods were Frequency and Chi-square test of independence which have been used to test the hypotheses developed in the study. The research empirically confirms and theoretically proves that the employees and staff of these two regional rural banks in the state are making their earnest effort to channelize the savings of rural people by mobilization of deposits by motivating them to deposit their surplus money in the regional rural banks. The bank officials are making efforts to extend credit facilities in rural areas to uplift the people economically. The bank officials are facing problems in deposit mobilization, and credit expansion in the rural areas of the state and they are managing these problems very efficiently. Some political interference was found in the functioning of these banks. In the opinion of these bank officials, the overall working of these regional rural banks is proper. The results of the research can be useful for policymakers in the government to understand the hurdles faced by regional rural banks in reaching to the poor and needy sections of the society. The insights from this paper can help the policymakers to craft innovative schemes which enable these banks to reach the most inaccessible customers in rural areas. Keywords Regional Rural Banks, deposit mobilizations, credit expansion, financial inclusion, loan recovery.