The NAFCUB Annual General Meeting held recently in Delhi threw up several startling facts once the delegates began to speak. One of the de-mystifying announcements concerned women banks.
Dr Firoza Bano, one of the delegates from Rajasthan and Chairperson of Rajlaxmi Bank disclosed that the country already has about 85 mahila urban cooperative banks about which the government seems to have no idea.
Readers would recall that in the last UPA Budget, announcement of setting up of a Women Bank was made with a great fanfare. The govt tried to project as if it is a novel idea and the much-touted bank would solve all problems of women related to their banking needs in the country.
If only government would have taken the already existing 85 women urban cooperative banks into accounts and tried to reach out to the women through them in true sense, regretted Dr Bano.
Dr Bano is herself presiding over one of such banks the Raj Laxmi Mahila Urban Co-operative Bank which was founded in 1996 in Jaipur, under R.B.I. norms, with the primary objective to uplift the social and financial status of women by promoting saving habits amongst them through the spirit of Co-Operation, and providing financial support.
In a short span of 18 years the bank has shown remarkable growth and had been a true help to the women folk.
Government own efforts are limited and if the efforts are made by the cooperative sector, it fails to note them, leave aside encouraging them, felt one of the delegates. The governmental apathy towards cooperative is being borne out by the poor of the country, rued several cooperators.
