At the counter near the bank entrance, two women are helping illiterate women clients fill out their passbooks. Many other clients—again, women—stoop over women officials in their cubicles. There are no men here. This isn’t the all-women’s bank that Union finance minister P. Chidambaram proposed in the 2013-14 budget. It’s the Shri Mahila SEWA Sahkari Bank Ltd, Ahmedabad, one that has been around for 39 years..................
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SEWA is a model that could have been replicated in several districts in India in different times and situations. But successful models which are workable in Indian conditions do not get the needed encouragement from planners and policy makers. I doubt whether the Woman’s Bank announced in the budget is really going to be a Woman’s Bank. FM said, and I quote…”…Can we have a bank that lends mostly to women and women-run business, that supports women SHGs and women’s livelihood, that employs predominantly women, and that addresses gender related aspects of empowerment and financial inclusion? I think we can. I therefore propose to set up India’s first Women’s Bank as a public sector bank….” The proposal is vague enough for interpretation. It is a ‘toy’ PC can ask for. Let India buy it for him
Let us remember PC’s earlier ‘avataar’ when he joked that 50 Local Area Banks with 5 crore capital each catering to 2 crore population will bring banks to every door. And RBI took it seriously and kept some engaged processing license applications. Do not really know what happened to some LABs which were really ‘launched’.”
For solving the real grass-root level problems facing women and other weaker sections of society, Ela Bhats will have to continue their efforts and wait for a mention in passing and a pause for an applause while FMs make budget speech. A public sector bank has a kind of identity which cannot be made over by giving it a ‘gender-focus’. Specialization is more necessary along the delivery line of services and processes, post-credit, rather than in providing capital from the top. From this perspective, there is abundant scope for the government and banks to support formation and sustenance of ‘SEWA’ model organisations for supporting financial inclusion, not necessarily with gender-bias.
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