With reference to your editorial (?Money, I shrank the net?, Dec 12) raising the point that in spite of the government?s policy emphasis on financial inclusion, rural penetration of banking appears to have seen a reversal in recent years, we would like to clarify that the facts are as follows. The exercise of updating banking centres as per the 2001 Census was carried out in March 2006 by the RBI?s department of statistical analysis and computer services. As a result, 953 centres that were earlier classified, by Census 1991 data, as ?rural? were moved to a higher population category on account of increase in population. Besides this reclassification, there are also instances of once-rural centres being brought under the jurisdiction of adjoining municipal corporations and thus being reclassified as ?urban?. This explains why the share of rural centres in the banking network has declined from 84.7% based on the 1991 Census to 81.7% based on the 2001 Census. If we ignore the base change, then out of 2,670 bank offices closed at an all-India level from 1997-98 to 2006-07, only 1,099 were rural. The policy thrust on rural inclusion continues, and there are several measures that have been adopted.
?Shashank Saksena, Dept of financial services, ministry of finance
Road cage
With reference to Tata Motors? Rs 1-lakh car, you have raised a pertinent point. As the editorial?s title sums up: ?But will it fly?? (Dec 8). Budget cars are welcome, but where are the transport-worthy roads?
?Vijay Mullaji