Poor account – The Indian Express Editorial with vocab September 14, 2016
Problem lies not with Jan Dhan, but the way the scheme is being
pushed.
It is
unfortunate to see bank officials in many parts of the country making one-rupee
deposits in Jan-Dhan accounts simply with a view to hide their “zero-balance”
status, as an investigation by this newspaper has revealed प्रकाशित. The fact
of the matter is that the opening of over 24 crore bank accounts, of which some
19 crore have been issued RuPay debit cards and over 50 per cent seeded with
the unique Aadhaar identity number of the account-holders, is no mean
achievement. That it has happened within a span of two years or so makes it all
the more remarkable for a country, where nearly 40 per cent of the population
till recently had no access to formal banking. The Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan
Yojana (PMJDY), moreover, aims to go further than just ensuring financial
inclusion. It seeks to move to a system of making payments under various
government programmes through direct transfers. Alongside reducing leakages in
subsidies and other welfare expenditures, the goal is also to migrate to a
cashless economy whose knock-on impact
on growth cannot be underestimated.
That is
precisely also the reason why the attempts at dressing up data is all the more deplorable (very bad). It is not clear whether the pressure for this has come
from the top or simply acts by over-enthusiastic branch level officials. Either
way, they violate basic banking principles — which rest on integrity, trust and
transparency. The Indian Express investigation
has shown that the account-holders were not even told about the Re one deposits
when they were made. It obviously opens up the possibility of one’s account
being similarly used to deposit slush
funds without that person’s knowledge — and being withdrawn as well. An
investigation is due and the officials involved are punished. At the end of
day, there is nothing to be ashamed about zero-balance accounts. Financial
inclusion is a necessary but not sufficient condition for money to be in
accounts. The latter requires generation of jobs and incomes. Zero-balance
accounts are a good indicator of that not happening. As a wise central banker
once said, finance can facilitate but
not lead.
There are
critics of PMJDY who say the scheme should not have been implemented through fiat. The counter to that is if there
was no push, banks would never have facilitated the opening of these accounts.
Financial inclusion is an investment the returns from which are far higher than
the ostensible (झूठी) costs
imposed on the banking system. In this case, the problem lies not with the
scheme, but in the spin doctors.
knock-on effect - When an event or situation has a
knock-on effect, it causes other events or situations, but not directly
slush fund noun - an
amount of money that is kept for dishonest or illegal activities in politics or
business
fiat / noun /
- an order given by a person in authority
ostensible – stated or appearing
to be true, but not necessarily so
synonyms: apparent, seeming, outward, surface,
superficial, professed, supposed, avowed
spin doctor noun
/ someone whose job is to make ideas, events, etc.
seem better than they really are, especially in politics
No comments:
Post a Comment