Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh addressed the participants of Central Level Coordination Committee Meeting-“Driving Financial Inclusion in[...]

Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Shailesh Kumar Singh addressed the participants of Central Level Coordination Committee Meeting-"Driving Financial Inclusion in the North East" in Agartala yesterday through video conferencing. He said that Banks have to play an important role in eight sister states where natural beauty and resources offers mass opportunities. Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, Shri Charanjit Singh chaired the Central Level Coordination Committee Meeting. Shri Charanjit Singh analyzed and decided the action for improving the Financial Inclusion status in the North East. To accelerate the pace of socio-economic development in the North Eastern states, which are also known as 'Ashta Laxmis', thrust has been given on universalization of Financial Inclusion.

The theme of the Committee Meeting was "Driving Financial Inclusion in North East". The main objective of the meeting was to universalize the Financial Inclusion activities & growth of the women Self-Help Groups movement in the country which has seen phenomenal success since the implementation of Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM) under the Ministry of Rural Development, Govt. of India.

Additional Secretary, Shri Charanjit Singh highlighted that 9.87 crore rural women have been mobilized into 90 lakh Self Help Groups who have accessed around Rs. 7.65 Lakh crore credit from the financial sector and maintaining better repayment of the loan with NPA of around 1.7%. More than 3 lakh Community Resource Persons have been developed to link these women SHGs with every financial services. 40,353 Financial Literacy Community Resource Persons and 1,18,300 Banking Correspondent Sakhis and Bima Mitras are working in the rural areas for penetration of different Financial Services. He said that a silent revolution is taking place through these SHGs with focus area on providing credit to individual SHG women which will also help to realize the dream of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi towards enabling 2 crores Lakhpati Didis.

Joint Secretary, Rural Livelihoods, Ms. Smriti Sharan said that a lot of potential is available in the NE region but the same has not been harvested. She touched upon the human side and gender discrimination and added that financial freedom is important to increase female labour participation in the work force.

Senior Executives of the banks, Reserve Bank of India, Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance, DONER, NABARD, CEOs/SMDs of other SRLMs also expressed their views on increasing access to the financial services in the North Eastern region.

The 24^th CLCC meetingconcluded by Director, Rural Livelihoods, Shri Raghvendra Pratap Singh, who underlined that Financial Inclusion will be instrumental in expediting relevant actions on the center-stage of development discourse in the region.

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SK/SS/SM