Financial Literacy – A Key Parameter Towards Achieving Financial Inclusion

Abstract

Agriculture has a strong occupational base in Indian culture. It had a huge contribution in the Indian economy during pre- and postindependence. The growth gradually declined and resulted in minimum contribution in the total economy. Enormous research highlighted the downturn of Indian agriculture due to financial inefficiencies of small and marginal farmers who are numbered the highest in the total population of farmers. The category had remained ineligible to be covered financially towards formal sectors and in turn had resulted in low irrigation and production of crops in their rested small acres of lands. Despite of the enormous efforts of RBI, Regional Banks and Financial Institutions, yet there remained a huge laggard in their financial upliftment. The research highlights that mere opening of savings accounts does not encourage its effective utilization unless it attains its adequate financial literacy. The research throws a light on various parameters “constrains” towards attaining adequate financial literacy in the aforesaid category and recommends the suggestions for the same. Stratified sampling with the total of 383 samples covering four blocks of the village of Puducherry have been opted for the research.