Want to make 1 mn rural women banking correspondents in 5 years: PayNearby’s Jayatri Dasgupta
Jayatri Dasgupta, Program Director, Digital Naari, PayNearby.
It is paramount that the country ensure there are women influencers in small towns and villages to bring awareness, technology, financial access and gender equality to the grassroots. This is necessary to realise true inclusivity, Dasgupta says.
Digital financial services provider PayNearby launched a women skilling and livelihood programme, Digital Naari, in February to give the women a self-sustainable earning opportunity. “In line with the government’s Lakhpati Didi programme, we want to enable livelihood for at least 1 million women and upgrade them into ‘Lakhpati Didis’ in the next 5 years by making them the preferred banking and digital point in their areas,” Dasgupta says.
She points out that surveys have shown that 90% of women prefer taking life and financial advice from other women nearby; therefore, the Digital Naari initiative aims to turn women into community influencers to ensure 100 million women in Bharat get access to banking, finance and other critical services.
The goal is twofold: To help women self-help groups (SHGs), local women business owners, community influencers and aspirational female cohorts at the last mile adopt sustainable livelihood programmes, and to enable essential financial and digital access to millions of other women through these community influencers.
The initiative trains women in banking and digital services. Its app enables these Digital Naaris to offer a range of products: Sehat (medical advisory and
