Yogi’s push for rural banking: Training for ‘Sakhis’ set to begin

Lucknow, Dec 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) The Yogi Adityanath government will start the training of 56,875 business correspondent (BC) 'Sakhis', who have been selected to promote rural banking, from December 15.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said the programme would not only help in simplifying banking for rural population by offering them services at their doorstep but would also create employment for women.

Additional Chief Secretary (rural development) Manoj Singh said around 2.16 lakh applications were received from 58,532 Gram Panchayats from across the state for the post of BC Sakhis.

In the first phase, 56,875 candidates have been shortlisted for training which will be conducted in all the districts once in a week in two batches of 30 each.

Once the training is complete, an online examination will be conducted by the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance.

Commerce Bank, Corporate BC and Fintech Payment Bank have been linked to the programme for proper training of candidates.

Singh said at least 34 companies had shown interest for partnership in the programme.

BC Sakhis will be provided with a desktop computer, a laptop, POSH machine, card reader and fingerprint reader.

For this, candidates will be provided an interest-free loan. They will be given a monthly stipend of Rs 4,000 per month for six months and Rs 1,200 per month as 'samooh sakhi' stipend.

They will also be permitted an overdraft of Rs 25,000. In addition to this, they will be paid a commission of 0.2 per cent on every transaction.

Singh said BC Sakhis could also be empowered to draw funds for payment of wages under MGNREGS.

NIFT, Rae Bareli, has been assigned the task of designing uniforms for BC Sakhis which would be in keeping with Indian traditions.

Weavers from Varanasi, Mau and Mubarakpur have been roped in to provide cloth for uniforms. Each BC Sakhi will get the first two sets of uniform free of cost.

Source: IANS