The village of Adikicherla in Telangana holds lessons for the NDA's current Jan Dhan initiative.
In the village of Adikicherla in Telangana, two hours west of Hyderabad, they wait for a man on motorcycle who will bring their NREGA wages.
Between 2008-2013, the UPA opened 17 crore no-frills bank accounts across India into which they could directly remit government payouts, like NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) wages.
Adikicherla was one such village.
Its experience holds lessons for the NDA's current Jan Dhan initiative, which proposes to open 7.5 crore no-frills accounts by 2015. In addition, it promises a debit card for each customer, overdraft facilities and even an accident and life insurance cover.
Raymond Peter, secretary rural development for Telengana, today presided over bank enrollment for united Andhra Pradesh.
As with Jan Dhan, all major government banks signed up like State Bank Of Hyderabad, State Bank Of India, Andhra Bank, Syndicate Bank and Bank Of Baroda. He told us that the banks were tempted by the 2 per cent commission they would receive on the government funds that flowed into the rural accounts.
The banks turned to business correspondents - or BC's - companies that provide the last mile of banking like Fino, Manipal and Zero Mass.
The BC's deployed an army of young men and women who travelled to villages to open accounts, and when the benefits were transferred, they would make the same journey with backpacks full of cash to make those payments. For the actual transaction, villagers would scan their fingers on a portable biometric reader.
But very soon, tensions flared. Mr Peter claimed that the banks were withholding funds to benefit from a 'float', a technical term to explain interest earned on funds meant to be remitted.
A senior SBI official denied the charge.
Within two years, the government banks pulled out of making payments in Andhra Pradesh. Mr Peter said,"they felt that the operations were very tedious. It was not economical for them to run and they found that there were too many problems in the business correspondents. They would run away with the money or turn up late."
In their place, private banks like Axis and ICICI stepped in. Mr Peter claimed they have brought much of the remittances online to scrutinise the process better.
They have also appointed NGO's to audit the transactions.
But now there are complaints that the BC's are holding back funds.
In Adikicherla, a village serviced by Axis Bank, complaints of delays abound. Many told us that payments are still delayed - sometimes up to a month. The government has mandated that NREGA payments must be made within 15 days of completion.
Mehboob, the representative from Manipal, told us part of the confusion is because the village was linked by another BC, Fino, which has since been replaced.
Local government officials, we were told, had just slapped a criminal charge against Fino, after one of its representatives absconded with about 4 lakh rupees from a neighbouring village.
Rishi Gupta, a Fino official told us that delays and theft were exceptions, not the rule.
Mr Peter told us that they have been pushing BC's to fully computerise all their records. At the moment, it is only partial, which makes it difficult to track the flow of funds.
But part of the problem is also finding thousands of young men and women who will provide the last mile of a massive exercise to bring banking into the rural interiors.
Jan Dhan envisages recruiting 50,000 more last mile BC's. But of the existing 2.48 lakh BC's, of which a high number - suspected to be in the range of 50 per cent - are dormant.
One of the problems is poor wages. Jyothi, the young woman who makes the payouts at Adikicherla, also a resident of the village is only paid Rs 1500 a month. She says its barely enough to make ends meet.
The Central government says that they expect BC's to pay their last mile provider at least Rs 5000 a month. But as Mr Gupta told us, of the 2 per cent commission the banks receive, they get half, sometimes less.
GS Sandhu, Secretary Financial Services, says that they are prepared to increase the commission earned by banks.
But he says that things will improve as the government starts increasing the flow of cash-based welfare benefits via banks. There is also a plan to do away with subsidised products - like kerosene and LPG - and instead remit the balance into bank accounts of beneficiaries. That could lead to a flow of roughly Rs 300,000 crore annually through the banking system. Mr Sandhu says this will incentivise banks, and encourage greater usage by beneficiaries of the banking system.