Published Paper Details:

Indian agriculture accounts for 17 to 18% to its GDP and 50% of work force of population (farmers) are employed in it yet struggles to survive and earn their livelihood. Despite of tremendous efforts of the Government to improve financial literacy among the farmers, still lack in basic awareness of financial services offered to them. Puducherry state was first to achieve complete financial inclusion in the year 2012 but yet to utilize the financial services and products offered to them effectively and efficiently. Medium and small farmers of Puducherry are yet to have complete awareness of formal financial system. The study focusses on kind of perception and level of awareness that the respondents carry over the banking services and financial products namely No Frill Accounts and Kisan Credit Card offered to them. The paper tries to clarify that positive perception and higher level of awareness of financial services and products would ultimately result in improved accessibility and usage and in turn would improve inclusive growth. The study has adopted stratified random sampling where 382 farmers from the extreme rural areas of Puducherry have been selected for the assessment.