For a few services like savings and insurance, there is a need which needs to be converted into demand. There is also a need to help them change their financial behaviour – they normally live on day-to-day basis and also think on a day-to-day basis. We need to build their awareness to help them think for long-term lifecycle needs. There is a need to help them to change their habit of making financial decisions like impulsive borrowing without thinking or understanding its terms and conditions, and their repaying capacity.

Balajee Sewa Sansthan along with the financial as well as technical assistance from NABARD organized 10 financial literacy workshops in 10 different villages of Dehradun & Uttarkashi district. The participants were trained on different aspects of regular savings, income-expenditure account, rational credit, smart investments & significance of insurance. More than 500 poor people from villages benefited from these workshops. Going one step forward in financial inclusion Balajee Sewa Sansthan assisted in opening of no-frill accounts of interested participants in Oriental Bank of Commerce.

In the coming year Balajee Sewa Sansthan proposes to run the program of financial literacy extensively in districts of Dehradun, Uttarkashi & Tehri Garhwal districts of Uttarakhand. Financial literacy program is done in an interactive way so that villagers can integrate the learning with their day to day life. In the workshop they interact directly with bank officials to know various banking schemes for rural areas.