New Delhi, Aug 1 (KNN) In a high level meeting with the bankers and other stakeholders, Union Minister of Women and Child Development, Maneka Sanjay Gandhi has highlighted the need to improve the financial inclusion of women by streamlining and reforming the system of micro-finance to women.

She has sought suggestions from stakeholders in order to make the Rashtriya Mahila Kosh (RMK), the National Credit Fund for Women, more effective.

The high level meeting was held here yesterday to discuss the possibilities of strengthening and restructuring RMK. 

The participants emphasized the need to build linkages between RMK, Bhartiya Mahila Bank (BMB) and other financial institutions, step up the percentage of finance for women in general by the banking system, capacity building of prospective borrowers to avoid bad debts, gender sensitization of lenders among others. 

The Secretary, V S Oberoi also pointed out the need to increase professionalism in the working of RMK, have a tie-up between RMK and BMB, with emphasis on capacity building. 

A four member committee of senior bankers and other stakeholders was formed to look into the various issues of micro-finance for women with reference to RMK, which will submit its report by the end of August this year. 

The participants included senior representatives of HSBC, ICICI, SBI, NABARD, BMB, PNB, Women’s cooperative and finance ministry. 

RMK has a corpus of Rs 100 cr but it has added Rs 129.17 crore to its corpus through interest earned from loans and investments. Thus, currently, it has a total fund base of Rs 229.17 crore. RMK has reached out to 7.35 lakh women beneficiaries through a network of 1, 510 NGOs and their Self-Help Groups. (KNN/SD)