ANALYSIS OF FINANCIAL AWARENESS AND FACTORS AFFECTING SELECTION AND PURPOSE OF INVESTMENT OPTIONS IN HIMACHAL PRADESH

The present study focuses on measuring the awareness of financial products such as mutual funds, shares, National Saving Certificates (NSC), Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), Public Provident Fund (PPF), post-office saving accounts and bank saving accounts of people living in rural areas of Himachal Pradesh in Shimla district. The data from 500 respondents was collected and it found that the majority of the respondents are engaged in Agriculture/Horticulture and rest of the respondents have their own business followed by service class and other sources of income. The simple percentage method has been used to measure the awareness of financial products among the respondents. The study also measured the factors affecting selection & purpose of investment option and investment preference of the respondents using weighted average method.