Sahaj ready to invigorate 6 crore lives in rural Uttar Pradesh

Chandigarh, February 2, 2016: Sahaj e-Village Limited, a Srei initiative is ready to invigorate 6 crore lives in rural Uttar Pradesh through its advanced digital platform. The company has received a fresh mandate from Centre for e-Governance, Uttar Pradesh to operate 20,000 Common Service Centres in 20,000 Gram Panchayats across 21 districts in the state.

 

Sahaj has partnered with leading banks like Bank of Baroda, Central Bank of India and Purvanchal Grameen Bank to expand the reach of financial services in rural Uttar Pradesh. The company has joined hands with Life Insurance Corporation of India for micro insurance and with DHFL Pramerica and Bajaj Allianz for collection of premium and for raising financial literacy. These partnerships will also help spread financial literacy across the state. The company is also evaluating the prospect of offering electricity bill collection service in the villages of Uttar Pradesh.

 

Sahaj has created one of the largest brick and mortar as well as human networks in rural India offering more than 50 critical services in the domain of education, utility, micro-insurance, banking and G2C services. The company has taken the services available to urban citizens to the remotest corners of the previously ignored rural India. For almost a decade now, it has been nurturing and developing the sense of entrepreneurship among common villagers.

 

Today, Sahaj serves the rural villages of Uttar Pradesh through 8,000 Common Service Centres. It has insured more than 21,000 lives, issued close to 1.5 crore G2C certificates, opened over 300,000 FI (financial inclusion) accounts, sold more than 83,000 solar lamps and registered 39,000 students for e-learning courses. The company has also provided insurance cover for more than 100,000 two-wheelers and around 16,500 four-wheelers in the state.

 

The new mandate will allow Sahaj to serve 1.2 crore households across 80,000 villages in Uttar Pradesh. Sahaj will now offer over 100 e-governance services apart from 50 private services through its 20,000 Common Service Centres in Uttar Pradesh.

 

Commenting on the fresh mandate, Mr. Santosh Dash, CEO, Sahaj says: "We are excited about this new opportunity. We have been transforming lives by providing rural consumers with direct access to modern state-of-art technology through our Common Service Centres. Uttar Pradesh is one of our most important markets. We are delighted that we will be able to scale up our operations and transform many more lives in Uttar Pradesh."

 

The village entrepreneurs will have to keep only Rs 10,000 as non-refundable deposit and a minimum of Rs 1,000 as working capital with Sahaj to run the Common Service Centres. The company will use this deposit for location branding and to provide support services (training, capacity building, village level advertising, call centre and helpline support, e-commerce support, etc.) to village entrepreneurs. The support services will not only allow village entrepreneurs in serving rural citizens but will also ensure sustained earnings and profitable business for them.