Mumbai:
The government will set up two funds of Rs500 crore each to facilitate easy availability
of credit to the poor. The funds are being set up as per the recommendations of
the Financial Inclusion Committee headed by C Rangarajan, chairman of the economic
advisory council to the prime minister. "Based
on the interim report, we have decided to set up two funds - Financial Inclusion
Fund and Financial Inclusion Technology Fund of Rs 500 crore each," finance
minister P Chidambaram said at a conference on microfinance. The
government will implement the recommendations of the committee, when it submits
the final report, he added. The
government has already set up a Rs100-crore microfinance development fund, the
finance minister said, adding, there is no clarity on the government''s role in
microfinance. "It
is not yet clear what the government should do, what the government shouldn''t
do, what should the government regulate and what it shouldn''t regulate,"
he said. The
government has introduced a micro finance bill in parliament to regulate non-profit
microfinance institutions. Chidambaram
also said that although the goal of all microfinance institutions is the same
- that to provide credit to the poor, organisations operate on different principles.
Organisations
which operate for profits want interest rates to be higher so as to recover the
costs, he specified.
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