It was a candid conversation between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shabana Parveen in Prayagraj on Tuesday. PM Modi held aloft Shabana’s nine-month-old daughter, Sidra, and asked Parveen inquisitively how she managed time to take care of her child while working as a Banking Correspondent (Bank Sakhi).
Parveen had come from Rampur’s Sirsalikalan village, located in Maniharan block of Saharanpur district, to Prayagraj as part of a group of thousands of working women who converged in the city for a meeting with the prime minister.
Some of these Bank Sakhis, including Parveen, were part of a separate interaction with the PM during which he asked them several inquisitive questions like what they used to do before becoming Bank Sakhis if people saw their identity in the villages as a ‘bank on the move’ and also asked them about the oldest person they had helped.
“How do you do your work in the villages? Like when you have to provide a service, how do you explain to people how they can withdraw or deposit money? Do people believe that if they have handed over their money to you, it has got deposited in the bank?” the PM asked the women. Most told the prime minister that before becoming Bank Sakhis, they were just taking care of the household chores.
Parveen specifically spoke of her admiration for PM Modi’s spontaneity and gesture to speak to women like her. “In a country where the prime minister himself directly interacts with the women of the village, no one can stop the progress of that country,” she told the PM while answering his questions.
Praveen later said she had some hesitation in front of a person of such high stature as the PM but given the simplicity of PM Modi’s dialogue with her, she could answer his questions without any hesitation.
“The bank is eight km away from my village. This caused inconvenience to the elderly, women and the handicapped. When I started working as a Bank Sakhi in November, the village elders, women and handicapped people got rid of the hassle of going to the bank. I send the money of these people to their homes by doing financial transactions with the bank,” Parveen told the PM.
Modi was told that Parveen had become the top Bank Sakhi in her district by doing banking transactions of a total of Rs 55 lakh. “You are doing a very good job. Keep going like this,” the PM told her.
Modi also blessed her nine-month-old daughter Sidra, saying she will make a lot of progress in life. Parveen later said that the PM’s intention is to make women self-reliant and that work is being done in this direction rapidly.
“If it were not so, I would not have got a chance to attend such a big event, and talk to the prime minister directly,” she said. Her husband, Sikander, echoed similar sentiments.
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