business correspondent in the hills of uttarakhand sewa bharat’s step towards financial inclusion...

BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT IN THE HILLS OF UTTARAKHAND

SEWA Bharat’s step towards Financial Inclusion

SELF EMPLOYED WOMEN’S ASSOCIATION (SEWA) Bharat


ABOUT SEWA

The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) was founded by Smt Ela Bhatt

as a labour union in Ahmedabad in 1972, with just 600 head loaders, street

vendors and home-based stitchers. Since then it has grown continuously,

increasing in its membership and including more and more different occupations

within its fold. Today, SEWA has more than 17 lakh dues-paying members in 10

states of India.


ABOUT SEWA BHARAT

SEWA believes in the joint action of strength and development and has furthered

more than 112 co-operatives & worker organisations. Today, it is a banyan tree

forest of organisations where poor women workers are the owners, managers

and users

SEWA Bharat is a federation of SEWA member organisations with the mandate to

highlight issues concerning women working in the informal economy and to

strengthen the capacity of the organisations that serve the interests of these

women.


ROLE OF SEWA BHARAT

1. ORGANISING AND CAPACITY BUILDING: Organize women to increase their bargaining power ensuring that their voices are heard and engineer trainings and workshops for the purpose of honing their skills

2. MICROFINANCE: Help women in their work towards capital formation at the household levels by providing them the necessary financial tools i.e. continuous savings, credit etc

3. EMPLOYMENT GENERATION: Skill training, improved livelihood and market opportunities for women workers and adolescent girls

4. SOCIAL SECURITY: Increased access of women workers to social protection entitlements, including health, insurance, child care and pensions

5. ADVOCACY AND NETWORKING: Women workers’ concerns are brought to the forefront with the ultimate goal of increased recognition of their rights and entitlements by organizing campaigns visible to the public eye.


SEWA BHARAT IN UTTARAKHAND

75 %

More than 75% of its population of 1.01

crore* comes under the category of ‘rural’.

Women, who account for 41% of the

population, work tirelessly for 16 hours in

agricultural fields braving rough weather,

wild animals and the unleveled terrain.

With rampant alcoholism in the state,

women often have to resort to hiding

their earnings in order to be able to hoard

savings. Map for indicative purposes only* According to the 2001 Census


FINANCIAL SERVICES: CONSPICUOUS BY THEIR ABSENCE

Owing to the high altitude, poor connectivity with roads, thinly spread population, bank

services in such areas are often very limited.

In order to bridge the chasm between rural areas and banking services, SEWA in

collaboration with the State Bank of India (SBI) began a unique initiative of financial

inclusion in 2009.


SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION MODEL

The SEWA-SBI financial inclusion model employs local women and provides linkages

between banks and previously unbanked areas. Women are appointed as Customer

Service Point (CSP) if they meet the following requirements pre-determined by

SEWA:

In need of employment

Must have Class Xth school education

Comfortable with traveling to the bank of the and unbanked areas



State Bank of India issues a Business Correspondent Code to the CSP. CSPs provide a

spectrum of bank services like:

Opening of Zero balance account

Deposit savings

Cash withdrawal

Remittance

Loan application

Government schemes distribution

MGNREGA



A Little World, the technology provider, then

generates a unique CSP ID and leverages a Point of

Sale (POS) Machine. With these machines, the CSPs

reach out to unbanked areas and through the medium

of these POS machines; the customer identification

(fingerprints, voice-recording, and customer

photographs) is recorded. Once the data has been

entered, it is linked to an account and subsequently,

the customer details are uploaded to the Mumbai

server through GPRS

Technology used in the SEWA-SBI Financial Inclusion Programme



Customer ID card

After the pre-requisites are fulfilled, each

customer is issued a SEWA-SBI identity card

with her photograph and a unique customer ID

card enabling banking facilities.


SEWA BHARAT

WOMEN WOMEN WOMEN

CUSTOMER SERVICE PROVIDERS (CSP)/ SEWA BANK SAATHI

RURAL UNBANKED AREAS

BASIC MODEL

Services like bank a/c opening, deposit savings, cash withdrawal, remittance, loan application, govtschemes distribution, MGNREGA

Desired profile:•In need of employment•Must have class X school education•Comfortable with traveling to the bank and unbanked areas.


SEWA BHARAT

CUSTOMER SERVICE PROVIDERS (CSP)/ SEWA BANK SAATHI

OPERATIVE TECHNOLOGY

SBI issues a Business Correspondent Code to the CSPs. A Little World (ALW), technology provider, generates a unique CSP ID and issues them POS machines.

Identity of the community members, through fingerprints, voice recording, is recorded with the POS machines.

DATA ENTRY IS THEN LINKED TO THE CORRESPONDING A/C

DATA UPLOADED TO SBI’S MUMBAI SERVER THROUGH GPRS; A/C REGISTERED

SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION: UNIQUE MODEL

The uniqueness of this programme stems from the following:

Through this programme, the bank comes to the customers instead of the customers having to go to the bank investing time and money.

Unlike most Business Correspondents, SEWA finances the POS machines; transaction deposit amount in Bank pays them an assured salary and expenses. SEWA does not take security deposit from them. This is the only way the poor supports the poor.

SEWA is providing livelihood to such women who connect thousands of villagers to the Banking services. She is available to collect a sum of Rs 10/- too.

90% of our ‘No Frill Accounts’ are active and not idle. So these accounts are fulfilling the needs of the poor.

At an average, a CSP links 750 people with the financial services of this programme.


SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION: ASSOCIATED BENEFITS

The rural population of Uttarakhand primarily consists of the elderly, women and

young children. Men regularly venture out to the cities looking for better

employment opportunities. Agriculture, albeit difficult, alongside animal husbandry

have been the main occupations of these women. For long, the state has struggled

retain these people through local employment and income generation. Through this

unique model, employment generation for women has grown manifold and the

gap between financial inclusion and financial stability has narrowed.


ACHIEVEMENTS OF SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMME

Working in 16 blocks of the 4 districts of Almora, Bageshwar, Pithoragarh and

Champawat, 2012 saw 5524 new accounts being opened out of which:

3, 571 were POS accounts, 1, 706 manually opened

91 were RD accounts

156 were FD accounts

104 loan (96 agriculture loan) accounts with Rs 73 lakhs disbursed.

Total 28 bank saathis were employed for this.


PARTICULARS NO OF A/C* AMOUNT* (Figure in Rupees)

Total Deposit 15701 43552944

Total Advances 232 18337500

Total 15933 61890444

Transaction 380781

*As calculated on the 31st December 2012


The Vodafone Foundation, in association with the Digital Empowerment

Foundation launched the Women & Innovation for Mobile (WIN) Award, in

2011, to honor and recognize innovative mobile applications and solutions

benefitting women users in the category of Education, Health, Family

Welfare, Economic Empowerment and Entrepreneurship.

The Grand Jury deeply appreciated the innovations of the SEWA-SBI Financial

Programme and the positive impact it had on the women workers and

emerged as the Finalist of the awards.



In March 2013, a landmark achievement came in the

form of successful pension distribution through the

channel of this programme. Without having to liaison

with concerned departments tirelessly, beneficiaries

directly had their pension sums transferred to their

SBI bank accounts.

A total of Rs 1, 50, 000 was transferred to 25 such

accounts.

PENSION DISTRIBUTION THROUGH BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT MODEL

1 For the elderly, Pension shoulders the

responsibility of ensuring a decent standard of

living. Pivotal for their survival, pension schemes

are often caught in red tape delaying its timely

delivery making the situation grim for the elderly.

2In March 2013, Joint Magistrate, Ranikhet,

Dr Ahmed Iqbal inaugurated the pension

distribution routed through the Business

Correspondent Model of SEWA-SBI.

PENSION DISTRIBUTION THROUGH BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT MODEL

3

4

Pension Distribution was, then, facilitated

by opening zero balance accounts and

transferring pension directly to their

accounts

Without running from pillar to post,

pensioners are assured of timely delivery

of their pension scheme helping them

lead a secured life.


With the success of the recent pension distribution service, SEWA-SBI Financial

Inclusion Plan will also be used for the purpose of Direct Benefits Transfer of

Central Government Schemes in the districts of Bageshwar.

WAY FORWARD: SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMME

Apart from making financial services accessible to the rural poor, the SEWA-SBI

Financial Inclusion Programme aims to act as a channel for easy, swift, graft-free

route of cash transfer for over 300 schemes like those of widow pension,

MNREGA, Jan Shikshan Sansthan, handicap pension among several others. The

recent disbursement of old age pension through this model is a humble beginning

to a long drawn journey.

SEWA-SBI Financial Inclusion Programme aims to maximize benefits and

minimize inconveniences for its members.


SEWA-SBI FINANCIAL INCLUSION PROGRAMME

Thank you!

https://www.facebook.com/SelfEmployedWomensAssociation

www.sewabharat.org

business correspondent in the hills of uttarakhand sewa bharat’s step towards financial inclusion...

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