13th March 2018, Gasa:
Global Money Week & 1st Meeting of PSL Committee in Gasa Dzongkhag

Yesterday, coinciding with the 1st day of the Global Money Week, we convened the first meeting of the Dzongkhag Priority Sector Lending (PSL) Committee. In addition to the PSL committee members, other relevant and interested individuals viz, the GAOs, agri and livestock staff of Gewogs, other sector heads and the heads of all financial institutions (BoB, BNB, BDBL, RICBL) also attended the meeting.
The meeting discussed and approved a project on poultry farm and approved provisionally (cost needs to be reworked) a Mushroom farm. We would like to thank Bank of Bhutan (BoB) and Bhutan National Bank (BNB) agreeing to fund one project each. 
The secretary and chairperson of PSL committee took the opportunity to brief and educate the participants on PSL and requested everyone to walk extra miles in supporting the noble programme to uplift the less resourced fellow citizens, specially the youths. It was emphasized that in this programme, we have to facilitate the clients (farmers and youth) in not only providing the cash capital through PSL, but also land, technology, and any other services. There should not be any case where an interested and potential entrepreneur cannot start a project because of reasons such as : no land, no technology, no forest and environment clearances, etc which used to be the major obstacles in the past.
One issue that came to light was the misunderstanding of the clients on the advocacy that no project proposal is necessary for this PSL loan. So a farmer expects that if he puts up a request for 5 lakhs to start a mushroom project’s, he should get the loan instantly just like that, which is not the case. So it was explained that, it is true that farmers/clients need not write a project proposal but for the sanctioning of the actual loan amount, we need to get advice/recommendation from the concerned technical experts, e.g. the livestock sector for livestock projects. This was a big issue, which was clarified. 
Dzongda urged that this time, we all have to put in special extra effort to turn this noble initiative into many successful enterprises. He also said we should not take this as an additional responsibility (burden) but rather something that is long over due from all of us. We should have done this much before but somehow could not do until it came as another GIFT from the Golden Throne. Therefore, we should take this as an opportunity and honor to serve the Tsawa Sum more meaningfully.
Dzongda also talked about the Global Money Week and its mission of promoting financial literacy. For this year the focus is on Financial Education and Inclusion in Schools. Youths and students are on focus with a nationwide campaign to encourage and engage the students to open bank accounts. Gasa had already compiled a list of about 150 plus students interested to open bank accounts. On the occasion of the Global Money Week, Dzongkhag committed to support the students in opening the banks accounts.