In times of cash crunch, farmers learn e-banking in Indore

An awareness programme to apprise farmers of the benefits of digital banking was launched by Ruchi Soya, in partnership with State Bank of India (SBI), at Jal Sabhagraha in Indore on Friday.

An awareness programme to apprise farmers of the benefits of digital banking was launched by Ruchi Soya, in partnership with State Bank of India (SBI), at Jal Sabhagraha in Indore on Friday.

Virendra Kumar, regional manager of SBI, (far right) along with Varad Murti Mishra, additional collector, (second from left) addressing a press conference in Indore on Friday. (Shankar Mourya/HT photo)

The seminar — Kisan Kalyan Ayojan — introduced farmers to digital banking and government schemes to ease the payment methods. More than 100 farmers from Sanver, Manglia and Ujjain mandis participated.

SBI regional manager Virendra Kumar said, “Our staff is trying hard to make people digitally active. Once the farmers go digital, they will receive their payment directly in their accounts.”

SBI deputy general manager PK Balaji said the bank has been taking initiatives to educate people on digital banking for a very long time. We have lunched ‘Buddy’ wallet application in 13 languages for our farmers and issued ‘Imprest’ cards (a card issued to corporate entities for making payments to their employees). He added that “digitisation will greatly benefit farmers too.”

The Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh high court on Friday issued notices to the Union government, Reserve Bank of India and the state government seeking replies on measures taken to reduce inconvenience caused to citizens due to demonetisation.

The notices were issued in response to a public interest litigation moved by Akash Sharma, a law student, who urged the court to issue a writ of mandamus to the respondent state authorities to make separate counters at the banks to provide immediate relief to people suffering due to cash crunch.

Sharma said, “Work that can be finished in 5-10 minutes, is taking more than 5-6 hours due to unorganised queues before banks. This has made many people ill and some had to pay through their lives. The inconvenience could have been reduced if authorities had prepared themselves. Pushing people into such an inconvenience is violation of Article 21 (Right to Life & Personal Liberty) of our Constitution,” Sharma added.