Thursday, January 15, 2009

Srei Sahaj Signs MoU with PNB to Offer Financial Assistance to Village Level Entrepreneurs

New Delhi, January , 2009: Srei Sahaj e-Village Limited, the largest ICT based infrastructure provider in rural India in the area of e-governance services has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Punjab National Bank, wherein the bank will provide financial assistance to village level entrepreneurs (VLEs) in the state of Bihar. The company is a subsidiary of Srei Infrastructure Finance Limited.

Srei Sahaj holds the mandate to roll out 5,565 common service centres in Bihar. Nearly 2,000 VLEs have set up their centers and around 500 of these have applied for loan assistance from PNB. As per the scheme, the VLEs are required to invest Rs 1.6 lakh for setting up a common service centre. As margin money they are required to put a minimum of Rs 40,000 with the balance being funded by banks. These banks are already providing the requisite funding to such rural entrepreneurs who are carefully selected by Sahaj. 

According to the Srei Sahaj CEO Sabahat Azim, the MoU with PNB will enable speedier implementation of the e-governance project in Bihar, besides making all CSCs fully functional by the end of the current financial year. Simultaneous plans are afoot to enter into strategic tie-ups with the bank for providing loan assistance to VLEs in U.P. Assam and Orissa. PNB’s proactive step demonstrates PNB and its’ leadership’s commitment to rural India and Financial Inclusion. PNB is the thought and action leader as far as providing support to Financial Inclusion Projects and to lending to the Priority sector is concerned. Mr K.C. Chakraborty, CMD, PNB has been the extremely supportive in supporting the project where the benefit goes entirely to the unserved millions in vastly populous rural India. Mr G Banerjee, GM, Priority Banking and Lead Bank division, who signed the MoU on behalf of the bank on Monday (January 12th) said that this was the “beginning of a long journey in our quest to create an entrepreneurship environment in Indian villages.” Dr Sabahat Azim signed on the company’s behalf.

Srei Sahaj has been by the far the most aggressive among all private sector players in the e-governance sector. With a mandate to set up more than 26,000 CSEs in six states, the company is on its way to fulfilling the faith showed by Government of India in its ability to undertake the task of not only rolling out more that 25 per cent of the total CSCs being set up in the country, but also creating significant employment opportunities in rural India. The company is committed to investing up to Rs 1,000 crore in the e-governance project being established in the country on a public private partnership model.

Srei Sahaj has been continuously upgrading technological inputs, especially in the area of connectivity, to enable VLEs to provide different G2C as well as B2C services in the six states.


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