The Curious Case of Missing Agents in Rural India

by Akhand Tiwari, Mukesh Sadana, Puneet Chopra and Lokesh Singh
Jan 24, 2014
1 min

This note highlights the survey conducted by MicroSave covering five districts of U.P and Bihar, to ascertain the real presence of CSPs and their activity levels.

In order to ascertain the real presence of CSPs and their activity levels, MicroSave conducted a survey covering five districts of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. According to official records, these districts have a total 1,141 CSPs. Of these, data could be found for 923 CSPs, and 862 could be visited. The findings from the survey are startling. Total “transaction ready” CSPs were present in only about 6.6% (194 against 2,932) of the villages. Further, only 117 villages had CSP available for transaction every day, implying that only 4% villages can really be considered to have proper CSP coverage. Until this changes, we can safely assume that neither Aadhaar-enabled benefit transfers nor financial inclusion will take off.