Implementing Body
The Government of Assam (GoA), with the support of the World Bank, through the Krisarthak, is an assignment that has been initiated under the APART Project. The Government of Assam (GoA), with the support of the World Bank, through the Government of India (GoI), is implementing the Assam Agribusiness and Rural Transformation Project (APART). The Project Development Objective (PDO) of APART is to “add value and improve the resilience of selected agriculture value chains focusing on smallholder farmers and agro-entrepreneurs in targeted districts of Assam.”
Krisarthak has been under the project’s sub-component C (iii) ‘Facilitating access to and responsible use of financial services.’ The assignment focuses on one of the three core activities under Project APART, which is financial education and counseling (FEC). This FEC assignment now christened as Krisarthak aims to provide ICT-based financial education and counseling services to a significant proportion of APART beneficiaries and reach out to 2,50,000 farmers in core value chains (agriculture, horticulture, dairy, fishery, handloom, sericulture) during 2022- 2024.
To implement Krisarthak a financial education and counseling (FEC) team has been formed consisting of a consortium of four partners namely the New Delhi-based Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) along with Fair Climate Fund (FCF), the Indian Institute of Banking Management (IIBM) and the Council for Social and digital development (CSDD).
Through Financial educational and counseling modules Krisarthak will be offering literacy on five core banking services and products defined as savings, insurance, pension, loan, and payment. The services are expected to be tailored to the needs of target beneficiaries and particularities of the value chain groups.
Assignment Objective
Keeping the above goal in mind Krisarthak has defined following program objectives:
>> To create a financial education and counselling ecosystem which will encourage farmers to integrate in organized financial system and enhance financial inclusion.
>> Develop and implement an ICT-based financial education module for target beneficiaries within the FPC fold.
>> To create digital awareness related to the access to financial product and services.
>> Offer personal financial advisory to individuals who need guidance in accessing core financial product and services or with financial planning.
>> To create budget diaries for such farm households who show interest in accessing financial counseling and advisory.
>> To create dedicated IVR network that will educate, counsel and advise farmers with relevant financial products and services.
>> Create Network of physically available Bittiya sahayaks for 24/7 query resolution related to the digital mode of delivery.
>> To develop comprehensive yet simple communications on financial products & services created in local language for farm community.
