The quality of work Mein Pragati programme showcased, led the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to empanel CRISIL Foundation for its prestigious MoneyWise Centres for Financial Literacy project in 2017, starting with 25 centres in Maharashtra, Haryana and Rajasthan which today has scaled up its coverage through 429 CFLs to cover 60,000 villages across 1,200 blocks in 234 districts of 14 states and four union territories of India with support from the RBI, 10 PSU banks and NABARD.
These centres work towards raising financial awareness, promoting good financial practices, and driving sustainable change in behaviour among people in their catchments.
Key programmatic aspects
Setting up a physical centre (the hub) with required infrastructure/ functionalities, where customers/ community members could walk into and seek support for documentation and counselling
Developing highly visual training content – flipbooks, Audio-visuals, games – to drive key messages based on education through entertainment model
Extensively training on-ground field staff, resources handpicked from the same block, who can communicate in the local dialect
Creating a local, trained cadre at community level, who can support the on-ground field staff
Regularly coordinating with all bank branches, financial service providers, and block/ district administration, which helped provide a supportive environment
We have adopted a hub-and-spoke approach for this pilot project as illustrated below:
Outreach and impact (till date)
25 lakh +
community outreach through trainings and awareness programmes
3 lakh +
Linkage applications mobilised towards banking and other financial services
30,000+
Walk-ins into the CFL centres