Arun Jaitley, Union Minister of Finance, Defence & Corporate Affairs inaugurated the event, ‘ICICI Rural Summit – ‘Sashakt Gaon, Samriddh Bharat’.
The inauguration of the digital villages follows the bank’s commitment given in November 2016 to transform 100 villages into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ in as many days.
The programme involves end to end digitisation of transactions and other commercial activities, providing vocational training to villagers, extending credit facility and helping the villagers to access markets and earn a sustainable livelihood.
Speaking at the event, Chanda Kochhar, Managing Director & CEO, ICICI Bank said: “ICICI Group has always believed that the key to building a prosperous nation is through empowering its villages. In line with our vision of ‘Sashakt Gaon, Samridhh Bharat’, we have transformed 100 villages across the country in 100 days. We have created a less cash ecosystem at these villages, provided vocational training to over 11,300 villagers, including more than 7500 women and offered them credit linkages. We have done all of these in the past 100 days."
This ambitious move of transforming over 100 villages into digital villages is inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to scale up the digital village programme. In January 2015, he had dedicated the first ‘ICICI Digital Village’ at Akodara in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat, to the nation at an event commemorating 60 years of the ICICI Group.
The 100 villages which have been transformed into ‘ICICI Digital Villages’ are located across 17 states in India. These include 16 in Gujarat, 14 each in Maharashtra & Madhya Pradesh, 12 each in Tamil Nadu & Karnataka and 11 in Rajasthan among others.
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