Must know concept for NABARD/ RBI : E-Shakti

Dear Aspirants,

NABARD has come up with 92 vacancies for Grade 'A' post and so, in order to help you prepare better, we will be launching a special term either related to 'Economic & Social Issues (ESI)' or 'Agriculture & Rural Development(ARD)'. A proper study of these terms will help you score better in the upcoming exams.
Today, we are covering a common term of ESI for RBI and NABARD exams, which is 'E-Shakti'.
So, let’s pace up your preparation now!

E-Shakti initiative of NABARD

What is E-Shakti?

E-Shakti consists of two-word E-Electronic and Shakti-Power. It means empower. A project on Digitisation of Self Help Groups’ (SHGs) financial and non-financial records initiated by NABARD for various stakeholders who are working in the field of microfinance.

Other details of EShakti

EShakti or Digitisation of SHGs is an initiative of Micro Credit and Innovations Department of NABARD.
Digital India is a Rs. 1.13-lakh crore initiative of Government of India to integrate the government departments and the people of India and to ensure effective governance.
The project is being implemented in 100 districts across the country.

Aims and Objectives:

digitisation of all the SHG accounts
increasing the bankers' comfort in credit appraisal
Integrating SHG members with the national Financial Inclusion agenda;
Using and improving technology between SHG members and Banks for banking services.;
Using Aadhaar linked identity for facilitating convergence(limiting) of the delivery system.

What is the need of Digitisation?

In order to reduce delay in the maintenance of books of accounts.
To ensure transparent and proper maintenance of records of SHGs.
Bringing SHGs on a common web-based e-platform by making bookkeeping easy for low literacy clients.
Promotion of national agenda of Financial Inclusion
Reducing the issues related to multiple financing by banks.

Stakeholders of the Project:

Rural poor community and members of SHGs,
Self Help Promoting Institutions (SHPI),
Non-Government Organisations(NGOs), Banks,
NABARD,
Government development departments and agencies like SLRM, NLRM etc.

Attributes of the project:

e-book keeping for the SHGs
Regular updates of transactional data
Reports generated in the formats as required by stakeholders like bankers
Inbuilt automatic grading of SHGs based on NABARD/IBA (for NRLM) norms
Auto-generation of Loan application for the bankers on the input of resolution to borrow by SHG.
Ease of transfer of social benefits and Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) through Aadhaar linked accounts and convergence with other Government benefits;
The USP of EShakti software is 'one-click' availability of social and financial information of all the members of the Self-Help Groups.

Components of the Project:

Mapping of the existing SHGs in the district (bank wise, branch wise);
Training of volunteers to collect SHG wise/ member wise data;
Data feeding through a customised software in the central server;
Hosting of data on the web under a dedicated website i.e. eshakti.nabard.org;
Maintaining data centre and data recovery centre;
Regular update of the transactional data

Process:

Information of all the SHGs and their members to be uploaded onto the website.
The transactions to be updated through 'apps'.
Data authenticity to be ensured through SMS alerts to members and sample audits.

Impact:

Availability of credit to SHGs based on real-time performance;
Significantly reduced Saving-Credit linkage gap;
Record of credit history of members;
Transparency will be promoted through real-time SMS alerts in 10 languages to members;
Aided convergence of SHGs with other Government Programmes;
Integrated members with the larger Financial Inclusion Agenda;

Paving way for Credit Linkage:

Bank branches to access the portal through Intranet
MIS reports can be generated sitting in the Bank branch itself;
Easier processing of loan using EShakti system

Challenges:

Large-scale training and capacity building of SHGs, SHPIs involved in the implementation of the programme;
Cooperation from banks;
Huge fund requirement for scaling this pilot from the present level to 86 lakh SHGs across the country.

Recent Data of E-Shakti:-