Migrant Remittances and Financial Inclusion - A Study of Rickshaw Pullers in Delhi

India is home to one third of the world's poor with second highest number of financially excluded households estimated at about 135 million. A majority of the urban poor are internal migrants employed in unstable occupations (rickshaw pulling, street vendors) in the unorganised sector. Migrants face hardships in remitting their earnings because they do not have a bank account both at the migrated place and their village, thus forcing them towards expensive informal sector. Financial inclusion drive calls for a conscious attempt to reach the vast numbers of excluded poor. As migrant workers are heterogeneous, little, if any direct information is available about the volume of remittances and the transfer mechanisms used by migrants. Given the migrant workers contribution to the urban economy, issues relating to migrant remittances assume significance for achieving financial inclusion.

The paper is drawn from a wider study about 176 rickshaw pullers in Delhi and explores the remittance behaviour based on primary data collected during August-October 2009. The results are instructive about the remittance behaviour of migrant pullers throwing useful insights about the potential market demand that exists for capturing this market by designing suitable products and thus moving towards financial inclusion of these migrant workers.