Staff Reporter
Panaji
The state government on Tuesday launched the Bima Sakhi Yojana, becoming the second state after Haryana to launch the central government scheme which aims at empowering women aged 18-70 years.
Launching the scheme at a function held at Darbar Hall, Raj Bhavan, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said the government has set a target to make 1,000 women as LIC agents under the scheme.
The Bima Sakhi Yojana initiative of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is designed to empower women aged 18-70 years, who are Class X pass. They will receive specialised training and a stipend for the first three years to promote financial literacy and insurance awareness.
The Bima Sakhis will get a stipend of Rs 7,000 per month in the first year, Rs 6,000 per month in the second and Rs 5,000 in the third year.
The Bima Sakhis will get a total of Rs 2.16 lakh during the period of three years.
After the training, they can serve as LIC agents; the graduate Bima Sakhis will have an opportunity to qualify for being development officers in LIC.
After distributing Bima Sakhi Yojana letters to beneficiaries, the Chief Minister said the scheme will give financial support to the women, adding that the role of a Bima Sakhi will be very significant, because ‘insurance for all’ is the aim of the government.
“In the name of investment, many companies in Goa have looted hard-earned money of the people ranging from Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore. You should not fall prey to such fraudulent investment schemes; instead prefer to invest in Life Insurance Corporation,” he suggested.
The special scheme does not only focus on women empowerment, but also aims to enhance life insurance coverage at the grassroots level, he said, reckoning that the scheme would help create mass awareness about the importance of life insurance.
Under the Rural Livelihood Mission, the government provides a maximum loan of Rs 20 lakh to women’s self-help groups to undertake self-employment and to empower them financially. It is another initiative in the interest of the women, Sawant said.
Senior divisional manager of LIC Sangeeta Parab, director of planning, statistics and evaluation Vijay Saxena, director of rural development Gopal Parsekar, project director of RDA (South) Deepali Naik and other were present at the event, which was organised under Swayampurna Goa 2.O initiative of the state government.
