The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), under its ‘eShakti’ initiative, has so far digitised records of around 4.55 lakh self-help groups (SHGs), covering 75 districts in the country, Padma Raghunathan, Chief General Manager of Nabard, Chennai, said.
Speaking at a stakeholder meeting on eShakti digitisation of SHGs, she said the initiative was started as a pilot project in two districts in 2015 and subsequently extended to 75 more districts in the country. The project now covers 250 districts in the country.
As part of the initiative, banks have collated data of around 3,175 SHGs in Puducherry. The individual data linking their Aadhaar and mobile numbers have been mapped and banks given viewing rights of the activities of each group. This will help banks view the groups’ activities and sanction loans from the branches, she said.
Addressing issues
Ms. Raghunathan said digitisation addressed issues like the quality of book keeping, multiple membership of SHG members, patchy credit histories and provides grading report of any SHG based on its financial and non-financial records, at the doorsteps of all stakeholders.
Uma Gurumoorthy, District Development Manager, Nabard, said over 4.55 lakh groups were covered across the country under the eShakti initiative with a cumulative savings of ₹2,588 crore. The credit linkage has improved from 38% to 55% thus proving the success of the project in catering to the credit needs of the poor, she said.
B. Veeraraghavan, zonal manager, Indian Bank, was present.
