The Reserve Bank of India and Finance Ministry are not having any difference of opinion over the BJP Government’s proposed financial inclusion project, Raghuram Rajan, Central Bank Governor, has said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is widely expected to unveil on August 15 an ambitious financial inclusion project—Sampoorn Vitteya Samavesh—that seeks to open at least 15 crore new bank accounts for 7.5 crore unbanked families over a year.
“We are in discussions with the Finance Ministry. There is no difference of opinion between us," Rajan told a press conference after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley addressed the Central Board of the RBI here on Sunday.
These remarks are significant as it comes at a time when the RBI is reportedly not in favour of immediately providing an overdraft facility of ₹5,000 to all the new basic accounts as part of this financial inclusion drive.
Public sector banks are also keen that an overdraft be provided selectively and that too only after studying the activity of the said accounts.
The RBI is also understood to have conveyed to the Finance Ministry that it is not in favour of setting up of a credit guarantee fund (with corpus of ₹5,000 crore) to give comfort to banks to provide such overdrafts.