educate the individual as a part of society – virtually all our knowledge, our clothes, our food is produced by others in our society, thus, we owe society and have responsibility to contribute back to society. c. through education, knowledge must continually be renewed by ceaseless effort, if it is not to be lost. it resembles a statute of marble which stands in the desert and is continually threatened with burial by the shifting sand. the hands of service must ever be at work, in order that the marble continue to lastingly shine in the sun. while discussing the importance of education, i must state that schools have become the most important means of transforming wealth of knowledge and skills from one generation to another. however, the role of institutions becomes more challenging in the modern world bis central bankers ’ speeches with innovations and technological developments. investment in education and educational institutions should be viewed as an investment for economic prosperity. in india, there are about 26, 478 institutions providing higher education and accounting for the largest number in the world. in comparison, according to a report1, in 2010, the u. s. had only 6, 706 higher education schools and china had 4, 000. it is important that given the large number of schools of higher learning in india, we must target to bring more students under the system. investment in human capital, lifelong learning and quality education help in the development of society and nation. demographic contour according to the national commission on population, it is expected that the age profile of population of india will experience changes in the coming years. by 2016, approximately 50 per cent of the total population will be in the age group of 15 – 25 years. it is projected that a vast population would enter the working age group in the next 15 years, leading to increase in productive activities and also savings rate as witnessed in japan in the 1950s and china 1980s. in other words, there would be a tremendous rise in the number of employable work force in the job market which would demand commensurate investment in education. in the literature, demographic dividend refers to population “ lump ” in the working age group of 15 – 60 which can be described as a major advantage for pushing the economic growth. it suggests that the major challenge before india is how this advantageous demographic profile can be harnessed to reflect in the macro - economic parameters of the country. given the demographic profile advantage, the average indian will be only 29 years old in 2020 as compared with 37 years for

customer service has been long recognized, we cannot yet say that the objective has been successfully met. though the challenge of providing efficient customer service is universal, the challenge is greater in india given that it has to be balanced with the objective of promoting financial inclusion and financial literacy. 3. as a regulator, we have several concerns with regard to customer service practices followed by banks such as the instances of mis - selling of products to vulnerable consumers, sale of unsolicited products - often by bundling them with other products, lack of transparency and disclosure, hidden charges, penalties, etc. and improper recovery practices. the widespread proliferation of complex products, often leveraging on technology coupled with the rise in cross border and electronic transactions, have also added to the challenge of ensuring effective customer service, especially for the most vulnerable groups. role of bcsbi and pccos 4. it is in this context that the formation of the bcsbi was announced by the then governor of rbi, dr. y. v. reddy in his annual monetary policy statement in april 2005. since then, the bcsbi has done a commendable job as an independent watchdog to monitor bis central bankers ’ speeches the adoption and implementation of its codes and standards by banks. in this mission, the bcsbi has been assisted by pccos, who are single point nodal officers in member banks and are, thus, extended arms of bcsbi for monitoring implementation of codes and standards and for various matters relating to customer service. 5. the bcsbi has evolved two sets of codes, viz. code of bank ’ s commitment to customers and code of bank ’ s commitment to micro and small enterprises, which have been in existence for seven and five years respectively. however, despite the codes being in existence for a considerable period of time and having been adopted by banks, the quality of service delivered to customers still leaves a lot to be desired. this is reflected in the volume of complaints received by banking ombudsmen across the country and from the interaction with customers during town hall meetings. 6. i believe that an important cause for deficient customer service is the inability of banks to understand the specific expectations of diverse customer groups and to devise product, pricing and delivery strategies that are best suited to meet these expectations. many banks would not be aware of the number of customers they have or the number of products they offer. while a plethora of products might be available on paper, many of them might