Financial Inclusion in Rural Area: A Case Study

The present study attempts to measure the financial availability, usage and extent of financial inclusion in rural Marathwada. In this study primary and secondary data are used to construct the overall financial inclusion index (FII) for Marathwada region. For a detailed study, two districts from Marathwada region are selected. One village within a near to Urban area (Danapur) and another village located far away from Urban area (Chincholi) were selected randomly for survey work. Further, 100 households were chosen randomly for collection primary data in May 2015. Also the attempt is made to identify the determining factors of the level of financial inclusion by using multiple regression models. Financial inclusion index has been considered as dependent variable and education level, household income, landholding, dummy for SC/ ST, dummy for farm household, awareness of the respondent as independent variables. It is found that the majority of the districts belong to the category of medium financial inclusion group. The results of the regression analysis revealed that the coefficient of the dummy variable for farm household exerts significant influence on financial inclusion of the sample households in the study area. This study suggests that the government should focus on improving the financial inclusion process through improving the financial awareness especially for underdeveloped region and low asset households.