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PM launches scheme for women LIC agents
PM Modi emphasized women's empowerment through initiatives like 120 million toilets, training 200,000 women insurance agents, and self-help groups in a recent launch.
Women empowerment is on the government’s topmost agenda and started with the construction of 120 million toilets since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Monday while launching a stipendiary scheme to train 200,000 women insurance agents earning a regular monthly sum totalling to ₹2.16 lakh per person in three years.
Revolutionary policies unveiled for empowerment of rural women and decisions taken for them in the last one decade are matters for academic research, Prime Minister said at a public gathering in Panipat, Haryana. Taking popular names of his government’s scheme to uplift lives of poor women, he said: “Bima sakhi, bank sakhi, krishi sakhi, pashu sakhi, drone didi, lakhpati didi may sound very simple and ordinary, but they are transforming the fate of India,” he said.
He said India’s women’s self-help group scheme should be “scripted in history with golden letters” because of empowering women and becoming a medium to transform the rural economy, he said. The government has extended help worth ₹8 lakh crore to about 100 million women associated with self-help groups across the country in the last 10 years, he said.
India is firmly marching ahead to become a ‘Viksit Bharat’ (developed India) by 2047 and it is because of contributions made by “every class and region” since 1947, he said. India, however, needs many new sources of energy to achieve this aim by 2047, he said naming some of them such as the Northeast India, and ‘Nari Shakti’ (women power).
In a tacit reference to the Opposition after the BJP’s victories in Haryana and Maharashtra assembly polls where women voters played a significant role, Modi said, “People who used to weigh everything on the scale of politics and vote bank are very surprised and troubled these days. They are unable to understand why the blessings of mothers, sisters and daughters are increasing in Modi’s account, election after election. Those who considered mothers and sisters only as vote bank and did politics of making announcements during elections, will not be able to understand this strong relationship. To understand why Modi gets so much love and affection from mothers and sisters today, they will have to remember the journey of the last 10 years,” he said.
“Ten years ago, crores of sisters did not have a single toilet. Modi built more than 12 crore [120 million] toilets in the country. Ten years ago, crores of sisters did not have gas connections, Modi gave them free Ujjwala connections, made cylinders cheaper. Sisters did not have water taps in their homes, we started providing tap water to every home. Earlier, no property was in the name of women, we made crores of sisters owners of permanent houses. For a long time, women were demanding that they be given 33% reservation in the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha. With your blessings, we got the privilege of fulfilling this demand. When such honest efforts are made with the right intentions, only then one gets blessings of you sisters,” he said referring to women in the audience.
Earlier, introducing the ‘Bima Sakhi Yojana’, a stipendiary scheme of state-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), Union finance minister Nirnala Sitharanan said that the scheme is well aligned with the government’s key objectives of women empowerment and financial inclusion. It involves a three-year stipend programme for women (bima sakhi) in the age group of 18-70 years with educational qualification of class X and above. Their role is to promoting financial literacy and insurance awareness, she said.
Sitharaman said the scheme aims to raise women’s participation in insurance business, which is currently less than 28%. The scheme offers a total stipend of ₹7,000 per month to each candidate in the first year, ₹6,000 per month in the second year and ₹5,000 per month in the third year, she said. Over and above, bima sakhis can also earn commission for selling LIC policies, she added. The scheme targets to cover 200,000 women in three years.
The scheme also involves career for qualified bima sakhis. “After training, they can serve as LIC agents and the graduate bima sakhis would have the opportunity to qualify for being considered for development officer roles in LIC,” she said.
During the programme, the Prime Minister also laid the foundation stone of the Maharana Pratap Horticultural University’s main campus in Karnal. The ₹700 crore project includes a main campus and six regional research stations spread over 495 acres. The institution will work towards crop diversification and conduct research for development of horticulture technologies.
