Ahead of International Women's Day, NSE and Divyaj Foundation on Thursday announced signing of an MoU for financial literacy of women. The initiative in partnership with BMC will impart financial training to women employees of BMC, Police, blue collar women workers, self- help women’s groups, students and other women workers.

Ashish Kumar Chauhan, MD and CEO of NSE, said that with low women workforce in India, the aim is to not only to enhance their financial independence but also empower them and help bridge the gender gap at work. He added that women account for 25% of NSE’s investors out of over 11 crore unit investors in India.

He said that this year, NSE is celebrating 30 years of its operations and noted that just a few months back NSE and Divyaj Foundation have partnered for welfare of gig workers especially, women gig workers.

He also said that for skilling of students, NSE has already signed MoUs with the governments of Uttarakhand, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, Assam and Goa.

BMC commissioner Bhushan Gagrani said that Divyaj Foundation, NSE and BMC are taking an important step towards financial literacy and women empowerment and on how to put their savings to use for long term planning and family strategy. The training will educate women on how to put their savings to proper use.

Gagrani said that decision making in a family is taken by the head of the family and not necessarily the earning member.“With various modes of investments available in the market it is important to educate women on mutual funds and other such instruments to enhance their savings. BMC self help groups will be imparted training on how to plan their savings,” he said.

Amruta Fadnavis, founder Divyaj Foundation, exhorted representatives of women self-help groups present at the event to think of earning returns from their savings. She said while the money earned by women gave them wings, they never learnt to fly. “Women never learnt how to put their savings to use. Though we became educated we never learnt how to put our savings to use,” she said and urged women to gain knowledge on various government schemes that offer loans at negligible rates as against hefty interest charged by traditional money lenders.

“To begin with we have partnered with BMC to give training to its women self- help groups on financial literacy, short, medium or long term investments as per their individual needs with the rights type of loans as per their requirements Weintent to take this literacy programme to the rural areas pan Maharashtra with the NSE Model,” she said.