The silent crusade of Chetna Gala Sinha for women’s financial empowerment

 

Founded by Chetna Gala Sinha in 1997, Mann Deshi Bank was the first bank in the country for and by rural women to receive a cooperative license from the Reserve Bank of India. The bank was established with a working capital of ₹7,08,000 raised from among its 1,335 members. By now, the bank has 37,000 members, deposits of around ₹100 crores, more than two lakh account holders, eight branches, and has given loans to the value of ₹500 crores with a repayment rate of over 96 percent. The bank started with a single branch in Mhaswad but now operates across seven branches in Maharashtra with a working capital of ₹150 crores. 

The foundation of the bank was not built on smooth grounds. In 1996, when she applied to RBI to set up a bank for rural women, it got rejected on the ground of members were illiterate. Indomitable Chetna started a literary class being motivated by the villagers. They were not very good with reading and writing but they made the officials of RBI spellbound with their skill of calculating the interest faster than any educated banking employee. Within four months of their effort, Mann Deshi Bank got its operating license. Though within a few days of its launch, Chetna faced another roadblock as she found the number of customers dwindling but they moved fast to a positive solution of introducing doorstep banking and started visiting villagers at their homes for transactions. 

Sinha grew up in Mumbai and met her husband Vijay Sinha, an activist farmer from Mhaswad, while working with Jayaprakash Narayan as a socialist politician. She had done her BCOM and had a master’s in economics from Mumbai University before getting married and relocating to Mhaswad in 1987. The initial days of her married life were very tough as the village had infrequent bus service, no electricity, and toilet in the house.

Her fight for obtaining the basic rights for the villagers started with Shetkari Sanghatana where she tried to bring more women into gram panchayats and met Kantabai Salunke, a welder whose application to open a savings account has been turned down by the bank as she saved less than ₹5 a day. Salunke wanted to save this amount in the bank to buy a tarpaulin sheet to shelter her children during the monsoon. Her plight inspired Sinha to open a bank for these illiterate yet confident village women. 

“Mann Deshi provides a powerful platform for women’s empowerment in India. It sets itself apart by being one of the only organizations focusing on both—access to finance on one hand, and financial and business literacy on the other. One of its key differentiators is that it goes beyond traditional vocational courses like tailoring, computer literacy, etc., and develops rural, women entrepreneurs by providing business skills and exposure,” says Harpreet Bagga, head of the department, capacity building, Dasra, a strategic philanthropic foundation that connects funders with social enterprises.

 

The Mann Deshi Foundation took the responsibility of educating village women by arranging financial literacy classes where women can learn the ropes of savings, investing, loans, and insurances through modules that comprise games like Monopoly. The foundation also initiated the endeavor for community radio - Mann Deshi radio to spread the motivating life story of courageous women who started their own businesses withstanding many adversities present in society. In 2014, the foundation established a chamber of commerce where they can mentor aspiring women entrepreneurs. At present, they have three such chambers. It also has a toll-free number that provides instant business solutions to these women. They are also working on setting up a professionally managed $15-million fund that includes global development financial institutions and provides debt to women. During the demonetization phase, Mann Deshi Bank officials collected coins from the State Bank of India and went from door-to-door and in the weekly markets to exchange them for old ₹500 notes. 

In its silver jubilee year now, the Mann Deshi Foundation is working for the financial empowerment of both rural and urban women. This project is called “Her&Now” (Empowering Women Entrepreneurs) where the foundation formed a partnership with GIZ, a Germany headquartered development aid agency, to help women entrepreneurs grow their businesses.  

Apart from Women’s financial empowerment, Mann Deshi invested in sports and training of rural women. Mann Deshi’s sports field in Mhaswad is the only one available in the taluka and boasts of a 400 m track, annual camps, and a trained coach. For her philanthropic endeavors, Sinha has received various accolades, such as the Nari Shakti Award, the highest civilian award for women, and Forbes Social Entrepreneurs of the Year (2017), among others. Chetna Gala Sinha has also served as a Co-Chair of Financial Inclusion at the W20 Summit 2018 in Argentina and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos 2018.