was developed by rbi and formally handed over by the reserve bank governor to the chief secretary, government of karnataka on september 22, 2009 during the outreach programme organized in doddabelavangala village in bengaluru rural district. i am happy to inform you that the textbooks incorporating the content provided by rbi have since been printed and made available by the government of karnataka. 4. another significant decision taken during the meeting of the respected governor with the hon ’ ble chief minister of karnataka on may 14, 2009 was that steps would be taken to make financial literacy part of non - formal education. as a follow up to this decision, state - wide quiz competitions covering the schools, and pu colleges in all the blocks and districts of the state, were held in association with government of karnataka, slbc and the lead banks. the literature developed by rbi under “ raju and money kumar ” series and other material prepared on features of genuine currency notes, etc. were used for conduct of the quiz competitions in both english and kannada. rbi, bangalore, printed around 8. 80 lakh booklets for distribution to the targeted schools / colleges through the lead district managers and deputy directors of the education department. the block and district level quiz competitions culminated in the state level quiz competitions. i am pleased to inform this august audience that distinguished dignitaries sitting on the dais will give away the prizes to the winners of the state level quiz competition. 5. finally, i would like to say a few words about electronic benefit transfer ( ebt ) scheme which is formally being launched today by chief secretary, shri s. v. ranganath. this was a sequel to governor ’ s meeting with senior officials of the state government, commercial banks and financial institutions represented in karnataka on may 14, 2009, where it was decided that all issues relating to implementation shall be resolved to facilitate its implementation in the state. accordingly, steps were taken to implement the scheme as a pilot in bellary, chitradurga and gulbarga districts under “ one district - multiple banks ” model for routing payments through “ no frills ” accounts, or other bank accounts, under mahatma gandhi rural employment guarantee programme and social security pensions schemes. such account - holders will be issued biometric smart cards with individual ids. later on, the government of karnataka identified three other districts viz. chamarajanagar, mandya and dharwad for implementation of the scheme under “ one district - one bank ” model. this entire initiative is

while there are also others that are ordained by dictates of regulation and supervision. a case in point is the preparedness of banks for the risk based supervision ( rbs ) process that was launched in the current supervisory cycle commencing from april 2013. there has been a measured approach behind bringing in roughly 30 banks under the rbs ambit. the reasons are manifold and range from technological preparedness, adequacy of risk management techniques and skills and extent of human resource development in banks. the very fact that a certain segment of the banking sector still remains uncovered is an indication of the fact that those waiting to be brought under the fold have to augment their initiatives to better the skill - sets of their employees by way of an active training intervention in appropriate areas including hrd. training programmes, necessarily, will have to be followed up by a rigorous exercise of “ impact evaluation ” involving analysis of employee behavior, perceptible changes in operational and behavioural efficiency, observing emerging business practices a little more closely etc. perhaps, the biggest barrier to training initiatives is resistance to change. the most prominent example in this regard was the initial reluctance that banks in india displayed, when computerisation of work processes was introduced in mid - eighties. the ultimate objective of any training that targets the management of change is the ease with which the change is accepted leading to self - actualization for the employee and tangible benefits for the banks. towards self - actualization and feedback generation : in an effort to nudge employees to take the next step towards self - actualization and furthering the business interests of banks, some very important steps needed are ( i ) establishing a “ connect ” with the target employees ; ( ii ) expectation setting and preparing the trainees ; ( iii ) setting context and clarifying goals ; ( iv ) ensuring comfort, boosting morale and confidence ; ( iv ) forging bonds between the senior and junior level employees to drive the change and last but not the least ( v ) performance review. unless there is an objective analysis of results derived from any training program, there is no effective feedback that can trigger betterment in training processes and / or alteration of the training initiative itself. thus, training has to be invariably accompanied or rather summarised by a feedback that is reliable, easy to generate, objective and certainly not influenced. how serious are training initiatives in banks? i have reasons to believe that training initiatives receive the utmost attention and is not looked upon as a functional adjunct that is mandatory