BHOPAL: Over 500 members are now associated with the state’s first time bank created by former bureaucrats in the state. A time bank is where you offer voluntary service to earn credit hours and get repaid the same way. Free of cost service has time users and time volunteers, apart from time managers that work like bank managers to act as a bridge between time users and volunteers.
Former Chief Election Commissioner of India O P Rawat is its patron while former secretary in the MP government, Manohar Dubey is the key member.
Dubey said the bank would get fully operational by the year end, as a force of five thousand people is expected to be associated with the bank by then, offering different types of services.
Time bank in question was launched in Bhopal in March and works like the real bank with online mobile application. Separate groups comprising working and superannuated IAS, IPS and IRS officers, apart from doctors and engineers have been constituted to look after implementation and coordination of time bank in Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain and Gwalior. Similar group is in the pipeline for Jabalpur as well.
Bollywood celebrities are associating themselves with the time bank of Madhya Pradesh. Film celebrities including Govind Namdev, Ehsaan Qureshi and Rajeev Verma took part in the state level working committee meeting of the time bank held online in June and shared their experiences about the need to help elderly or ones left alone and to increase the reach of this concept.
People get associated with the time bank by registering on its mobile app I-TIMBA. The time bank has been created by a social organization-Initiation of Inner Change Center, run by former and serving bureaucrats.
Senior IPS officers are helping the organization in looking after the security issues, as the time bank will grow from Bhopal to different districts of MP and outside.
Dubey said the objective of the time bank is to bring the service seeker and service provider on the same platform. Verification of the people getting associated is mandatorily done. The checks have been kept keeping in mind the security issues, he added.
MP became the first in the country to have a ‘time bank’, where people can offer voluntary service to earn credit hours and get repaid the same way. The ‘adhyatm’ (spirituality) department started it in November 2019. District collectors were to act as facilitators and Rajya Anand Sansthan was to spread awareness and help people to form such banks. The time bank in question is not associated with the government and is working independently.
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