Banks use ‘one click’ to power women SHGs

Vijay C Roy
Tribune News Service|
Chandigarh, November 22

Banks will provide a ‘one click’ option to assist groups of rural women entrepreneurs (popularly known as self-help groups or SHGs) in setting up small ventures and the digital interface would not only help them in getting easy capital, but also counsel them for making their ventures successful.

Banks plan to use the digital technology to remain in constant touch with micro business ventures such as SHGs, provide them with timely help in market access and promotion so that these ventures become viable and loans given to them do not turn non-performing assets (NPAs), financial experts said.   

The ambitious drive to digitise records of SHGs in Punjab and Haryana under the ‘E-shakti’ project is initiated by Nabard with the help of NGOs. 

“The ‘one click’ will make available social and financial information of the SHGs. It will have tremendous significance for both the lenders and borrowers,” Nabard chief general manager - Punjab, JPS Bindra said.

The project will be implemented in phases. In the first phase, four districts of Haryana — Ambala, Karnal, Sonepat and Sirsa — and one district of Punjab – Patiala — have been selected as pilot cases.

The project aims at digitisation of SHGs accounts and bring their members under the fold of financial inclusion, which will help them access wider range of financial services from banks and government departments.

The move would also help in reducing the drudgery of book keeping and cut the dependence on cash transactions. Once the digitisation is complete, banks can access information on credit history, records of their members and their meetings, and also weed out defaulters and the members, who are part of multiple groups.

There are 34,943 SHGs in Haryana which are credit-linked with banks. In Punjab, the number of SHGs is 42,901. However, only 29,893 are credit-linked. There is always a gap between SHGs formed and credit-linked in the absence of proper records, banking sector experts said.

The project will also help the banks to expand their SHG portfolios by enabling mobile-based book keeping of the groups. In Punjab, the project was launched for digitalisation of 1,200 SHGs in Patiala district. To date, 1,122 SHGs have been digitalised having 11,670 members, Bindra said. Nabard is providing grant support to NGOs for digitisation of the SHGs in the district.