Monthly Newsletter
V O L U M E – 1 ,
SHROT - Ek Jhalak
I S S U E - 2 M A Y 2 0 0 9
First Joint Liability Group– A Learning Experience
Background- Saldogi village comes under the service area of Agrakhal branch. This village stood among the top three villages in terms of number of enrolment done including the first woman customer Mrs. Visha Devi. Our data for enrolled customers revealed that 60% of customers have basic education & rest are illiterate. The villagers usually do not make their own judgment and are dependent or influenced by the opinion leaders in the villages namely village Sarpanch, Anganwadi members (mostly educated women), or Senior members of the villages. Problem-Visha Devi got herself enrolled and was confident of making a group to avail JLG loan. She did manage to enroll two members & tried to convince the remaining for enrollment. On the day of enrolment the women group for JLG loan was influenced by one of the opinion leader, an Anganwadi worker who is active in the area specially with elections drawing near, resulting which the group was not formed. The opinion leader told them not to take SKGFS services as we are a private organization. After spending two hours in communicating to them about our services, the two women got themselves enrolled but did not form a liability group. Learning- It was heartening to see Visha Dev’s enthusiasm throughout the preceding to convince other two women. She held her ground and was convinced about our services. Which showed that people are slowly beginning to believe in us. We realized that our POMs have indeed made a dent, we have to be more proactive when we penetrate into the villages and keep all the sections of opinion makers informed and clarify misinformation among them.
“To maximize the financial well being of every individual and every enterprise by providing complete financial services in the remote rural parts of Tehri, Pauri Garhwal, Haridwar and Dehradun.”
The First Flight
The flight to our mission had a smooth take off. An overwhelming response was received when Sahastradhara inaugurated its first branch on 7th April 2009 at AGRAKHAL. Large number of people turned up to get themselves enrolled. It was heartening to see that people came with a lot of expectations. However it was clearly visible that the customers were predominately males. Only few women repreneed to create a awareness and trust as we are the first to launch a variety of financial products. In this month we got hold of the process of enrollment despite of geography and technology posed constant challenge. Its time to press the accelerator and take the SKGFS to the next level and fulfill all those expectations.
sented the community, None the less they expressed that with time more women would participate as this was the first time people were exposed to a venture like this. We realize that we
B-23, Ashirward Kunj, Near Rishikesh Gas Godown, Bharat Vihar, Haridwar Road Rishikesh Distt– Dehradun ( Uttrakhand) Ph– 0135-2431351
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WM Speaks– Insights From The Fields
Shiv Singh Pundir, our WM, a post graduate, shares his thoughts and experiences after joining Sahastradhara KGFS. He says “I feel every startup organization has some limitations and to overcome those limitations, you have to be focused & committed towards the goal of the organization and we have to work with complete honesty. Stability was the only thing which was missing from my life but now I feel secured and stable. With the help of SKGFS now I am able to contribute towards the well being of my own people. I have been working in SKGFS Agrakhal Branch as WM since last one month. During this period I have visited many villages and while working on the field I have faced many problems. However I have tried solving them by constantly updating myself and reiterating the rational behind the products & processes. I was little disappointed by the presence of less people during POM. It takes almost 1-2 hours to reach some of the villages. When people do not gather for POM due to some reasons I had to go personally to every home to tell them about the subject of POM. It consumes lot of time because I have to tell the same information again and again. When a walk-in customer comes to a Branch I have to go to the village for KYC and sometimes we have to go for KYC only for a single customer. If we can target each village in a phased manner for enrollment the task will become not only easy but also save customers time and facilitate one time visit to the branch. During KYC, people are usually ready to become introducers but are thinking that they are guarantors and they hesitate to produce their Voter ID’s but in spite of all this I am trying to solve this problem by Introducing our company to the villagers and telling the introducers that we do not take any thing as collateral, it just to understand the requirement of the customer and know whether he actually stays in this village. Moreover we are not charging any fees for account opening and we just need Voter ID for the purpose of account opening. ”
New Product Launch- Personal Accident Insurance
SKGFS, agrakhal branch launched – Personal Accident Insurance for its members on 5th May 2009, the response received was overwhelming. Through our customer interaction during POM and enrolment process we believed that it will be a step towards financial security for remote rural inhabitants. Within the first hour of launch PAI was given to 14 customer totalling Rs11,50,000 as insurance cover and premium of Rs 450 was collected. Most of the members went for Rs 100000 cover. Large number of people wanted the insurance cover for their entire family, since the scheme is for only enrolled customers of SKGFS this has acted as a catalyst with more people coming forward for enrolment to avail the service. Though Rs 40 is too small a amount to worry for in a year, the awareness about the product is generating excitement among the customers and they are looking forward to more insurance products such as Life insurance etc.
First GRT at Agrakhal Branch
News & Events
Local Team for HQ recruited and deployed Land Agreement for HQ, Gaja and Khadi Branch finalized 100 plus customers enrolled GRT for first JLG (Male) is successfully completed
First customer availing PAI
Please send your comments, suggestions and feedback at shrot@sahastradharakgfs.co.in B-23, Ashirward Kunj, Near Rishikesh Gas Godown, Bharat Vihar, Haridwar Road Rishikesh Distt– Dehradun ( Uttrakhand) Ph– 0135-2431351