The Ranchi Circle of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will organise ‘Financial Literacy Week’ across the State from June 3 to June 8 on the theme of ‘Farmers’ and how they benefit by being a part of the formal banking system. The main aim behind the initiative is to create financial awareness among bank customers about financial products and services, good financial practices and digitisation.
The Financial Literacy Week is an initiative of RBI is to promote awareness on key topics every year through focused campaign.
Addressing a press meet General Manager, Ranchi Circle RBI, Sanjiv Dayal said that the growth in agriculture is necessary for the overall economic growth and finance is an essential enabler for the same. “RBI is actively involved in formulating policies that enhance the flow of credit to the farming community. In recent years, the Bank has undertaken several initiatives to strengthen credit delivery mechanism and financial inclusion,” he said.
Speaking on events, which will take place during the week Dayal said that in order to build awareness and disseminate financial literacy messages to the farming community, focused content in the form of posters and leaflets have been prepared for dissemination. “Banks have been advised to display the posters and content in their rural bank, branches, financial literacy centers, ATMs and websites. Besides all this, RBI will undertake a centralized mass media campaign during the month of June on Doordarshan and All India Radio to disseminate essential financial awareness messages to farmers,” he added.
“It is RBI’s endeavor to reach out to the farming community and all stakeholders are requested to co-ordinate and make this financial literacy campaign a success,” said Dayal.
Speaking on the objective of the programme, National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development Bank (NABARD) Chief General Manager, AK Pathi said that as India is country of farmers. “Agriculture contributes 15 per cent in total gross domestic product. Around 58 per cent people of total population of the country earn lively hood from agriculture sector. In this scenario it is necessary to improve condition of farmers and in this direction the banks can be very helpful. The banks run numerous programme for easy and low cost credit for the farmers so that they can’t borrow from private lenders on high rate. NABARD has earmarked `8 crore for financial inclusion and `27 lakhs for financial literacy,” he added.
