Demographic Extent and Measurement of Financial Inclusion in Jammu Division

The aim of this paper is to examine the demographic extent and measure the perceptual gap among the beneficiaries having different age, caste, religion, qualification, income, gender, and marital status regarding nature of financial inclusion in Jammu division. It is the fact that financial inclusion has emerged as an important topic on the global agenda for sustainable long-term economic growth of all the sections of the society. The study is based upon the primary data obtained from the beneficiaries of four banks namely, Jammu&Kashmir Bank (JKB), Jammu&Kashmir Grameen Bank (JKGB), State Bank of India (SBI), and Punjab National Bank (PNB) belonging to villages of five districts namely, Jammu, Samba, Kathua, Reasi, and Udhampur of Jammu division of J&K state through judgement sampling. A schedule was framed containing items of demographics and statements measuring financial inclusion based upon five point Likert scale. The findings indicate that on the demographic variables i.e., age, caste, gender&marital status, there is no significant difference exists regarding nature of financial inclusion, whereas on other demographic variables such as, religion, qualification&income nature of financial inclusion differs.