Comments on: The Hunger Games Are Real for Millions of People http://cfi-blog.org/2014/01/29/the-hunger-games-are-real-for-millions-of-people/ Sun, 13 Jul 2014 11:01:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Y P ISSAR http://cfi-blog.org/2014/01/29/the-hunger-games-are-real-for-millions-of-people/#comment-33133 Thu, 30 Jan 2014 02:45:08 +0000 http://cfi-blog.org/?p=13825#comment-33133 Any discussion on removing hunger and bringing in financial inclusion can not be complete without discussing what is happening in India as it houses over 200 million of the world’s 842 million who do not have enough to eat and simultaneously has millions of smallholder farmers many of whom are not financially included. Sadly the required intensity efforts, matching the size of the problems, are not being made in the key eight Indian states- Bihar, Chattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhaya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Oddisha, Rajasthan and UP. Some of the state governments may not have resources and hence international agencies/Federal government need to focus exclusively on some of these. These are the states who have huge tribal and/or rural populations and all types of hurdles are a galore, say like insurgency. Banking networks here are very thin and need modernizing.

Mobile banking is struggling to find a foothold in India, thus reducing any scope of innovation, with banking and telecom regulators yet to give a clear roadmap.
Indian bankers are wary of operating in far flung areas where it is loss making to perform and agents banking yet to make a foothold.
There is every possibility that India alone will pull the world achievement of reducing hunger down if things donot change drastically in many of the pockets mentioned above.
Paradoxically, India also offers states like Punjab and Haryana, with many southern states where population densities per bank branch are as low as 8000, where smallholder farmers are reasonably ok and having fruits of modern agriculture.
The Indian failure appears more because of institutional inadequacies and depths then the urge on the part of the poorer people. Indian model of inclusion policies being the sole preserve of the central bank does not appear to be working well. Similarly Ministry of finance, Deptt of financial services responsible for providing credit to small holder farmers appear to have left things to the state owned banks who are struggling with high bad loans to agriculture sectors and are not able to push more credit to smallholder farmers.
Sadly inheritance laws are swelling the number of smallholder farmers as the land holding are continuously divided amongst sons (with some women groups also asking for a share for daughters).

Presently in hunger reduction through financial inclusion space, the light at the end of the tunnel appears dim

]]> By: yerramr http://cfi-blog.org/2014/01/29/the-hunger-games-are-real-for-millions-of-people/#comment-33127 Thu, 30 Jan 2014 01:24:10 +0000 http://cfi-blog.org/?p=13825#comment-33127 The alternative could be crossholding risks of small farmers with financing a stream of activities that would earn a continuing income: e.g., 2 animal diary units, backyard poultry or a few goats – 20 eves and a ram along with a storage bin to hold his farm produce enabling to wait for a better price to sell in the market for a limited period – all as a package with varying repayment schedules.

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