A rundown on the Bhamashah Project; the First Phase

October 8, 2008

By: Akshi Khandelwal                                                                                

 

The Bhamashah project is a joint venture between the IL&FS (Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services) and the government of Rajasthan. Due to lack of suitable access to low-income clients IL&FS subcontracted this project to BASIX, which took this as an opportunity to build an extensive network across Rajasthan.

Goal of the project

The government of Rajasthan has two main motives behind implementing this project. First, it wants to spread digital inclusion across Rajasthan through issuing smart cards to the targeted set of beneficiaries. The targeted set of beneficiaries consists of BPL families, small and marginal farmers and selected set of scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs).

Financial inclusion, however, is a prerequisite for digital inclusion. Therefore, first phase of the project involved opening of bank accounts for beneficiaries and was termed as the ‘enrollment phase’. It is important to keep in mind that the beneficiary is to be the oldest female member of the family and only one account was to be opened per family. In case of exceptional cases where no female member was present in the family the account was to be opened in the name of the oldest male member. IL&FS had partnered with the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to open these accounts. Apart from opening bank accounts, the government of Rajasthan also credited these accounts by Rs. 1500 to set off savings for beneficiaries out of which only up to Rs. 1300 can be withdrawn in this year.

Second, to provide BPL beneficiaries with medical insurance which would cover the cost of their absence from work due to illness and also cover hospital bills to the extent of Rs.30, 000 per annum. This falls under the Rashitrya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY).

 

Implementing the first phase

BASIX (a group of companies engaged in livelihood promotion) implemented the first phase from 28^th July 2008 to 14^th August 2008. The target was to open around 52 lakh bank accounts.

Rajasthan can be divided into 7 divisions. Out of these, IL&FS is responsible to cover 6 divisions that are Jodhpur, Udaipur, Bikaner, Ajmer, Jaipur, and Kota. A divisional head was assigned to each division. Certain number of district coordinators worked under the divisional head depending upon the number of districts that fell under that division. Further, 2 to 3 camp supervisors (CS) worked under each district coordinator.

Such an organizational structure worked well for effective implementation of the project in such a short period of time. There are about 29 districts that fall under 6 divisions with at least 3 blocks in each district. Each block consists of several panchayats and each panchayat consists of around 3 to 4 villages at least. The camp supervisors recruited customer enrollment agents (CEAs) for their blocks. The number of recruits varied depending upon the population of the villages present in different districts.

 

The camp supervisors had under gone training for the enrollment process before they left for their respective districts. This training was organized by the IL&FS team and was inducted to the CEAs by the CSs. This involved teaching the CEAs to fill out forms and take pictures (Kodak cameras were provided by IL&FS) of beneficiaries. The CS was responsible for training all CEAs and supervising as well as monitoring all the camps that were held within his block.

The recruited CEAs were divided into groups of 8, 5 or 3 depending upon the size of the panchayats they had to cover. A group covered approximately 5 panchayats (again depending upon the size of the district) and a camp was held for 3 days in each panchayat. The scheduling of the camps was done with the help of government officials present. These included the Block Development Officers (BDOs) and also the District Collector. They were very supportive and cooperative at all times.  Though all camps were supposed to start on the same day in all districts, due to lack of coordination and differences in number of blocks to be covered, this could not happen.

The beneficiaries were supposed to bring their ration cards or job cards as ID proofs. Since there were three categories in the targeted set of beneficiaries, different forms were available for each category. There were three types of forms that were to be filled. The pre-populated forms (in which certain fields had already been filled), the new enrollment forms and the correction forms. The pre-populated ones were further divided into categories of BPL and APL (for SCs/STs and small and marginal farmers). The lists of BPL families and SCs/STs were to be found with the ‘gram sevek’ of the panchayat, while the list of small and marginal farmers was to be found with the ‘patwaris’.  While there can be 3 to 4 patwaris to each panchayat, there is only 1 gram sevek to a panchayat. Also, the lists vested with these authorities and other government officials were from the year 2002.  Therefore, if new beneficiaries were to be added to these lists, authorization of the ‘Tahseeldar’ was required and if old names needed to be deleted from these lists then the sanction of ‘patwaris’ or ‘gram sevek’ was sufficient.

Fingerprints (on the forms) of all those beneficiaries who were illiterate and could not sign their names (this covered the majority) were taken. These set of fingerprints were, however, only for the enrollment phase. As stamp pads were used to take these, another set of prints will be taken at the time of issuing smartcards (for better quality).

 

Field-related problems

I worked as a camp supervisor (field executive for BASIX) in the district of Jaisalmer, which falls under Jodhpur Division. The enrollment procedure was successfully implemented by the 14^th August, 2008. After which it took us a couple of days of winding up in making payments to a total of 200 recruits.

Visiting the field I got familiar with different types of problems that our teams were facing while they were at their jobs.

The weather was not very favorable. Initially, it was too hot and later it rained regularly for a few days. It became difficult for the beneficiaries to reach the camps on time.

Apart from the weather conditions there were other problems, such as ILFS’s lack of preparation and lack of coordination. Their delay in sending the pre-populated forms and other stationery items caused a lot of confusion and wastage of time and money.

Certain problems regarding the BPL beneficiary list not being updated (it was based on 2002 survey) were encountered in some villages but were managed well by the government officials and BASIX team. People of these villages were not allowing our teams to take pictures and claimed that the BPL list included families that did not deserve to be a part of the list and excluded those who actually fell under the BPL category.  As this issue arose in a few other places as well, I feel that the government should consider taking some action towards this or else, the whole purpose of the project gets defeated.(perhaps, I will  post another blog on this issue)

 There were a couple of quality issues as well. Overtime with proper monitoring the quality of the photos taken and forms filled improved. However, a few teams in Jaisalmer block forgot to write the ration card number/voter ID or NREGA number on any of the forms. In order to rectify this error I had to sent all the forms back to them to get all the empty fields filled and have them re-take all the pictures of the forms. This was not possible for the forms that had already been sent to ILFS.

Jaisalmer, being a district of a very large radius demanded a lot of traveling. Financial issues pertaining to mobilization of teams from one village to another arose at many instances.

 

Second Phase:

The second phase of the project involves issuing of the smart cards and training the beneficiaries to use them. It was supposed to start in October, 2008 and should be underway now.  Also, BASIX plans to open at least 2 to 3 points of services (Pos) in each district.

Whether, smart cards will be issued to all those who filled forms and got their pictures taken is still a big question, as it is important that their bank accounts are opened first (this might be impossible due to quality issues). However, as the project is sustainable for 10  years, this process is to be repeated for those who get rejected or are left out this time.

I cannot say much about the second phase as I only witnessed the first phase. One good thing about the project or the way it is being implemented is that it gives employment to many people, especially in areas where job opportunities are very rare. Also, it is incredible how we were able to achieve our targets in such a short period of time despite of the different obstacles we faced (though I cannot comment about other districts).

 Doug had forwarded me  a couple of articles about this project which I found quite misleading.  He, however, got in touch with Preeti (senior manager at BASIX) regarding the  present state of the Bhamashah project and can probably follow up with this….and let us know more about it. Also, Doug if you feel that I have missed out on something or written something incorrectly....you are free to comment.