Mumbai-headquartered Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd on Tuesday rolled out its financial inclusion programme across 75 milk cooperative societies of Amul in West Bengal.
Called “Kotak Samridhi”, the initiative was rolled out across the districts of Burdwan and Hooghly.
It will see direct transfer of money to farmers' prepaid cards for their daily produce. The money transfer process will take place within the same day.
Earlier, the payment cycle would be of three days.
“Approximately, 8,000 farmers supplying milk to Amul through these cooperative will benefit through the programme,” Tushar Trivedi, Executive Vice President & Head Branch Banking, Kotak Mahindra Bank, said.
According to him, Kotak has tied up with National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) for using their RuPay platform for issuing the prepaid cards.
Farmers need not necessarily have a bank account with Kotak Mahindra to obtain payments.
However, cooperative societies need to have accounts with the bank.
Replicating the model
Kotak, which began the pilot project on financial inclusion here in the State in August this year, will now roll out a similar scheme for Amul in Gujarat.
Roll out is expected to happen in two months time (around February).
Over three lakh dairy farmers across 1,200 cooperative societies in the State will be part of the programme.
“In Gujarat, roll out will happen in a phased manner,” Trivedi said.
Kotak is also talking to other cooperative societies in Haryana and Punjab for extending the roll out to wheat and paddy.
Talks are, however, in a nascent stage.