he mega banking scheme Prime Minister's Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) has brought relief to Kolkata's red-light district Sonagachi, which houses around 11,000 sex workers compressed into a less-than-two-kilometre radius.

Bharati Dey, secretary of Durbar Mahila Samanwyay Committee (DMSC), a rights group in Sonagachi, said, "We have a list of 1,000 women who wish to open this zero-balance savings account and we'll approach the local nationalised bank here — a branch of the State Bank of India — as soon as possible. After this, we aim to get accounts for many more women. I do not anticipate any problems."

The DMSC is a collective of 65,000 sex workers from West Bengal. The organisation works for women's rights and is at the forefront of the fight against HIV/AIDS and related issues, not only in Sonagachi — one of the largest brothel districts in Asia — but across the state.

Dey said, "Initially, in order to avail any government scheme, we faced demands for documents and ID proofs. That created a huge difficulty for us. We've heard that documents are not a necessity for this scheme so that is good news. Many women here do not have ID proofs or other documents."

The bank account will come as a big relief to the likes of Urmi Ghosh (name changed) who has been denied one for years now for the want of a PAN card or a voter ID. While she worked as a sex-worker, her husband forcefully took away all her savings routinely and she said she hid whatever money she could, in her cleavage. Now with her teenage son Aubhro (name changed) having been selected by a famous English Premier League club for its training programme, she hopes to help him realise his dream. "I hope I can take advantage of this Jan Dhan scheme. I hope I can have a bank account on my name. All I have is my son, and I have saved some amount for him," said Urmi.

Pravin Patkar, the founder-director of Prerana, a non profit making body acting against human trafficking and protection of children of sex workers and reintegration of rescued minor girls and young women said the money these women save is the decisive factor in their lives. "Often, during rescue raids we have noticed that, with their money stuck with the brothel owner madam or the pimp or the husband-cum-agent, these women refuse to move out or speak up. They fear the loss of the money they have earned through prolonged suffering. This kind of account will empower them to hoard their money in a safe place and give them access to it wherever they are," Patkar said.

The bank account will come as a big relief to the likes of Urmi Ghosh (name changed) who has been denied one for years now for the want of a PAN card or a voter ID. While she worked as a sex-worker, her husband forcefully took away all her savings routinely and she said she hid whatever money she could, in her cleavage.

Mukul Manna, the branch manager at Canara Bank's Rabindra Sarani branch in Kolkata, said the scheme is empowering the underprivileged to access and demand their basic rights. "We did not expect such a huge response. The scheme has certainly increased our workload but I am happy that normally those who considered themselves too poor to walk into a bank are now directly and fearlessly approaching us and getting an account opened. This is what we can term as giving people their right as citizens," Manna said.

Manna also added that at the Rabindra Sarani branch, which is not too far away from the Sonagachi district, around 500 accounts were opened on 28 August, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the government's mega scheme. "After all, the scheme was launched with an aim to eradicate financial 'untouchability' by providing bank accounts to the poor," Manna said.

"Now accounts are being opened at the rate of approximately 100 per day. It is mostly the poor who queue up, but there is a stray 'not-poor-or-financially-secluded' who also walks in. But we are verifying the ID cards or local councillor's recommendation/certification or house owner's letter as proof of authenticity of applicant," Manna added.

Bharati Dey said she would have liked it better if the scheme had been advertised well and if they had been alerted earlier. But better late than never. Dey said the women in Sonagachi are happy to be benefit under a scheme meant for financial inclusion without stress on residence proof, etc. She said they fear no discrimination. "We do not want any special privileges, any special counters for sex workers. We are more than happy to go to general bank counters to open our bank accounts," Dey said.

These otherwise "discriminated against" women working in an unorganised sector had already formed "Usha", the consumer cooperative society and micro-credit programme under the DMSC led by Bharati Dey. Usha boasts of more than 5,000 members, who put in their small savings and had an annual turnover of Rs 9.75 crore in 2006-07, having disbursed Rs 2.12 crore in loans to its members. The women were otherwise exploited by the monopoly of Sonagachi moneylenders, some of whom charged 300% interest against loans. "Most of us have quasi-bank accounts here, but when we received information about the zero balance account scheme, we realised it would be a great asset for us," Dey said. "The government did not carry out any publicity campaign about the scheme here nor did we receive any information about the scheme personally. We received the information a little late and now we've mobilised ourselves to get these accounts."

An activist also added that this may help secure a safe future for the retired sex workers from Sonagachi who are otherwise forced to live a life of penury after falling out of favour with customers and brothel owners because of advanced age.