Barnatara Tripura -The Warrior

Despite several catastrophe in the personal front, Smt Barnatara Tripura has shown the zeal to survive and achieve in life. It is story of evolution of an SHG woman from an ordinary member to becoming an extraordinary Bank Sakhi who has the record of making 211 SHG Credit Linkage amounting to Rs. 274.3 lakhs. and getting 933 SHG Women enrolled into different Insurance Policies (PMJJBY, PMSBY, APY). She has conducted 7 Financial Literacy Camps in different GPs & Village Councils. She has opened 342 CBO savings accounts, which includes SHG accounts and Village organizations Accounts. Having cleared the IIBF exam, she has also qualified for Banking Correspondent. She got the Best Bank Sakhi award by NABARD on the eve of International Women’s Day 2021.

This is the story of the lady warrior, who has risen from the ashes to become the Bank Sakhi receiving the Best Bank Sakhi award in 2021. Smt. Barnatrara Tripura is a resident of Maira village council in Satchand Block of South Tripura District. Barnatara Tripura is from a very poor family, having 7 siblings and she was believed to be having the sharpest brain amongst all of them in her school days. Due financial difficulty, she dropped out of school in the 9th standard. Thereafter, she got married at a very young age, which led to taking up more responsibilities and ordeals to run the family.

In the hope of doing well, she joined an SHG in her locality namely, Chwngsasa Mahila Dal in 2015. She engaged herself in activities of Mahila Dal regularly. On 29/10/2015 she was selected by Tripura Rural Livelihood Mission for exposure visit to Andhra Pradesh to learn and observe SHG activities. The exposure visit changed her life. After returning from the exposure visit, she increased her services to additional SHGs. With the support of TRLM she adopted the post of Financial Inclusion Cadre (CSP FI) and started to give financial services to the SHGs on a regular basis. She started to give services like SHG bank account opening, individual bank account opening, providing assistance to the SHGs to withdraw money from the bank and other financial services. By performing these activities, she also started gaining monetary benefits from TRLM. Her growing popularity and goodwill provided the dividend and on 05th October 2018, she started working as a Bank Sakhi at Tripura State Co-operative Bank, Kalachara Branch under Satchand block.

She excelled as a Bank Sakhi and was also able to support her family economically. However, misfortunes awaited her as her husband, who was suffering from mental sickness for the last few years, committed suicide. She was barely 32 years old, semi – literate and faced with the daunting task of supporting her mother-in-law (also a mental patient) & 2 children, the oldest being 15 years & the youngest, only 12 years old. After her husband untimely demise, she took up the responsibility of the family.

Currently, Barnatara serves the banking needs of about 412 SHGs & around 3500 SHG women in her locality. Till date, she had done a total of 211 SHG Credit Linkage amounting to Rs. 274.3 Lakh. She has also registered 933 SHG Women into different Insurance Policy (PMJJBY, PMSBY, APY). She conducted 7 Financial Literacy Camps in different GPs & VCs. She also opened 342 CBO Savings accounts, which includes SHG Accounts and Village Organizations Account. By doing all these activities, she earns a handsome monthly honorarium from the CLF. Recently, she got the training on Banking Correspondence and successfully cleared the IIBF exam which was conducted by RSETI Gomati. She also successfully completed the Training Financial Literacy Community Resource Person (FL CRP). The epitome of her achievement was when she got the Best Bank Sakhi award which was given by NABARD on the Eve of International Women’s Day 2021.

Source : Inspirational Stories of Aatmanirbhar Rural Women