Agartala, August 25 (TIWN): With the aim to empower women and rural people, Innovative microfinance company ‘Bandhan’ started operating as a bank from Tuesday in Tripura.

With all together 18 branch in the state, Agartala will get 5 branches of Bandhan bank which is scheduled to work in full swing fromTuesday.

The main aim of Bandhan is to work with women, who are socially needy and economically exploited.

Bandhan has built on its experience as a micro-financier and as a bank strive to strengthen capacity building of people.

In most Indian languages, the word Bandhan means bond or togetherness. This bond with the credit-deprived poor in Eastern India’s villages and a Rs 2 lakh loan were the initial capital for Chandra Shekhar Ghosh, the son of a small sweet-shop owner from Bengal, to begin a microfinance institution, Bandhan Financial Services Ltd, and grow it to a private bank in less than 15 years.

However, it is alleged that Bandhan is pressuring almost everyone of the poor section of the society to do a permanent account in the Bandhan bank with a least amount of at least Rs. 3000 if people wants to get the benefit of loan from the bank. Bandhan proprietor claims that Bandhan is for the rural section of the society now question arises how will the rural people get Rs. 3000 at a time to open an account in Bandhan bank. 

Kolkata-based Bandhan was set up in 2001 as a micro-finance institution.

Bandhan provides loans of a minimum of Rs.1, 000 and maximum of Rs.5 lakh for small trading activities and from Rs.1, 000 to Rs.10, 000 for non-business activities like building sanitary toilets and for children’s education.

For the first time in 10 years, Mumbai-based IDFC and Kolkata-based BFSPL were selected by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) earlier this year to set up banks, from among 25 non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).

Currently, Bandhan is working in 22 states and union territories through a network of over 2,016 branches with more than 5.6 million customers. But the priority areas are in West Bengal, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and northeastern states to extend a helping hand to the deprived women of the society.

Bandhan also runs 600 primary schools in four states - West Bengal (370), Assam (100), Bihar (80) and Tripura (50) -- for poor kids and many training centers for the skill development of its employees.