Fruit seller Meena Devi of Mauli Jagran, a small village in Chandigarh, has never visited a bank throughout her life. To run her small business, she has been taking loans from private moneylenders and paying high interests. And she is not the only one in the village to do so?many of her peers follow the same route to earn livelihood.
The fact came forth when a bunch of 34 villagers from various villages of the city gathered at the first financial education and credit-counseling centre of Punjab National Bank (PNB) which is organising classes for rural folks for the last three months.
On speaking to various villagers at the centre it was found that despite having a bank account most of them did not know about the banking system. Moreover most of them were reeling under the pressure of loan ranging between Rs 10,000-20,000 availed by moneylenders.
Admitting the fact, Rohtash Kumar, Chandigarh circle head of PNB said, ?Awareness level on banking among the rural population located in the northern region is quite low than the other parts of the country. Opening accounts is just the beginning and we are holding various campaigns in villages so that villagers could avail the loan to run their small businesses as most of them are taking money from moneylenders on very high interest. We are also launching a drive in Maulijagran village where we will educate people how to make banking transactions.?
With an aggressive drive of financial inclusion launched by commercial banks, each household located in 23 villages of Chandigarh having population more than three lakhs has a bank account now but still villagers are not coming forward in large number to avail the services. Around 1,15,764 households have been covered under financial inclusion and 4271 new accounts have been opened. PNB which has a network of 25 branches scattered in rural and urban areas of the city has issued 5,000 biometric cards in villages and has already appointed business correspondents who are visiting in rural areas to cover people under banking net.