Mahagram is a social enterprise focusing on Financial Inclusion that has enabled banking from the grocery stores around the corner through fintech solutions. The company’s mission is to enable rural women to save money at the local Kirana (or grocery) stores, instead of traveling miles to the nearest bank branch.
Under the leadership of Mr. Ram Shriram, CEO, Mahagram, the company has launched a citizen service delivery portal called “GramSevak.com” to provide basic doorstep banking & e-governance services to all the citizens residing in rural & urban parts of India. The said services are provided through digitally-enabled feet-on-street representatives aka “Mahagram Sevak”. These “Mahagram Sevaks” will earn a commission for services provided by them through the portal. Citizens can use the “GramSevak.com” platform to access e-governance, banking, and insurance services with the support of their local “GramSevak” representatives. The Company hopes to enroll nearly 1 million unemployed youth under the “GramSevak” project, which will provide them with a source of regular income.
Financial literacy and financial accessibility will grow exponentially as the fintech sector in India are growing and witnessing massive innovations. Mahagram believes that in the post-Covid era, people have turned serious about the second source of income. They realize that they need to put their savings into the right investment solutions. “We are focusing on rural women because they are the ones who run households. We will be offering them the recurring deposit,” Mr. Ram Shriram said, sharing his vision for 2022.
Recently, Mahagram has tied up with the Bank of Maharashtra to roll out the ‘Bank Sakhi’ project in Odisha. The fintech would provide financial technology and infrastructure support to augment rural financial inclusion.
As part of the tie-up, the company has onboarded more than 11,000 bank sakhis (women) on the BharatATM platform to help the rural citizens avail themselves of basic banking services at their doorstep or the next-door Kirana stores.
Mahagram aims to increase the ratio and habit of household savings in rural India. “At Mahagram, we are indulged in offering basic banking services like deposit and withdrawing transactions to consumers but it is now high time for rural people to save money. We are focusing on Financial Inclusion the flagship project of the Modi government, by helping a lot of beneficiaries to open bank accounts under the ‘Jan Dhan Yojana’. We are also emphasizing rural women because they are the ones who run households. Our vision for 2022 is to offer women the service of recurring deposit.” says Mr. Ram Shriram, CEO, Mahagram.
Working towards its aim, Mahagram has recently signed a partnership with the IndusInd Bank, a new-generation Indian bank to digitize the country’s payment ecosystem and provide a wider horizon to transact especially for its customers in rural India. The partnership between the two aims to boost financial inclusion, encourage socio-economic development, mitigate the risks of a shadow economy, and accelerate the growth of a cashless society. Through this association, Mahagram aims to add 15 million small merchants to the UPI QR in this fiscal year.
Mahagram now has a presence in almost all Indian states. It is building scalable solutions to grow its market and to enable its customers to send, deposit, and withdraw money from the nearest grocery (Kirana) stores. Since its inception, Mahagram has been organically funded by its core promoters and stakeholders. Mahagram services nearly 15000 PIN codes and provides basic banking, eGovernance, and other BFSI services through its distribution network of around 12,000 distributors and over 7,00,000 retail partners among the mom-and-pop stores.
