Financial Literacy Camps For Women Farmers

Financial Literacy Camps For Women Farmers

Oxfam India is working with small scale sugarcane farmers, particularly women farmers, in Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Saharanpur districts in Uttar Pradesh. We are in regular touch with these farmers— through home visits and organizing small community meetings—to try and identify and understand the issues in the sugar supply chain.

During our many interactions it became clear that farmers, especially women farmers, faces difficulties in various banking process such as getting the kisan credit card and subsidised loan for various economic activities. There is hesitation among the small farmers in visiting the bank as there is a perception that taking loan from the bank or engaging with bank in some economic activity is not good and then they end up taking money from local moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates. 

We then decided to collaborate with the lead bank of the district as it is the lead bank's responsibility to conduct awareness sessions among the community regarding various banking process as well as to sensitise them on various government welfare schemes related with the bank. We decided to start the camp in Meerut. We met with officials of Canara Bank (lead bank of Meerut) and shared the feedback and challenges which the small scale women farmers were facing in the banking process. They were very appreciative of our work and it was then decided that community meetings will be organised wherein a counsellor from the lead bank will orient the women farmers on the various process and schemes.

The first awareness camp was organised in Batjevra village in Meerut on 13 May 2022. We decided to invite youths along with small farmers, including women farmers, to the awareness camp. Though the focus was on the latter, we invited others hoping that they will take the lead to disseminate the message to the rest of community members of their village.

In the camp, bank officials touched upon various aspects related to banking such as how to open a back account, documents required, various types of account and their operational mechanism, withdrawal and saving processes, and banking frauds and how to avoid them. They also shared the concept of Self Help Group, linkages of group with the bank, various subsidised loan scheme and ways to avail the same.

During the camp discussion were also held around welfare schemes such as Kanya Sumangala Yojana, Atal Pension Yojana and Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana. The camp was attended by 31 women farmers, 5 small farmers and 7 youths. The youths and volunteers, participating in the camp, were given the responsibility to disseminate the messages far and wide. The participants found the camps extremely useful. More such camps are in the pipeline. 

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Women Livelihood

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