In order to facilitate rural women operate their bank accounts of their own, Jharkhand State livelihood Promotion Society (JSlPS) under Ministry of Rural Development, has roped in Bank Mitras who will be assisting them in opening up their bank accounts as well as filling up their forms for making any transaction from their bank accounts at the rural branches. Over 75 Bank Mirtras, mostly women, have been trained by JSlPS to be placed accordingly at different rural branches across the state.
“To provide a helping hand both to the banks and the self help groups, we have been training the women, who will further help the SHGs in opening up their bank accounts, filling up the forms as well as credit linkage and making any other transaction by them,” said JSlPS CEO Paritosh Updhyaya. The espenses of Bank Mitras will be borne by the Cluster level Federations (ClF) of SHGs or any other nodal village organization of SHG till the ClF is formed, he added.
The need of roping in the Bank Mitras was felt on view of the scarcity of bank staff in the rural branches, their work load. “The idea was also drawn from the Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Bihar and other states where Bank Mitra’s are already functional benefitting the rural women at large,” added the CEO. Some of the Bank Mitras have already been placed at different rural branches while the remaining ones will soon be given their space in the banks.
“Once they start functioning in a proper way, their services may further be extended also to the individuals accounts assisting them to operating t bank accounts,” he said. Bank Mitras will also support the Bank Managers in documentation work, follow-up with SHGs in the field etc, reducing the bank staff to a large extent, said Upadhyaya.
The idea basically is to provide one contact person in rural branches who are capable of analyzing the data and also to coordinate between the banks and the village organizations. “Our motive is to relieve the bank staff from documentation work as most of the rural branches are single staff branch, which are already overburdened with other works,” said Programme Manager (Financial Inclusion) Jitendra Kuamar Jaiswal. Bank Mitas have been imparted 5 day rigorous in –house training also involving Bank Managers who also explained them the technical things like linkage of SHGs to banks and other things in different sessions.
A total of 75 Bank Mitras have been trained including 40 in Ranchi and 35 in Dumka, who have been sent to their fields. Initially they have been placed in intensive blocks of West Singhbuhum, Ranchi, Khunti, lohardaga, Gumla, Godda, Dumka and Pakur which will be extended further to other districts. JSlPS, writing a letter to different banks, has requested them to provide sitting space for the Bank Mitras at their rural branches