Lakshmi is sixty-eight years old and lives alone in Dhanpur. Her husband died five years ago, and she depends on a monthly pension paid by the government. For years she travelled to the town to collect it, waiting in long queues and sometimes returning without the money because the office had closed. On the way home, a middleman sometimes offered to collect the pension for her, for a share of the amount.
Last month the bank held a camp in the panchayat hall in Dhanpur. A banking agent brought a small machine that could read fingerprints and print receipts. Lakshmi's fingerprints were worn from years of farm work, and the machine failed to recognise them at first. The officer tried her other fingers, updated her details, and linked her pension to a bank account in her own name. She withdrew a small sum on the spot and received a printed receipt, which she folded carefully into her cloth bag.
Her son, who works in a distant city, now sends money directly to the same account, and Lakshmi learns the balance from a message on her basic phone. The officer warned her never to share the secret code sent to her phone with any caller, however urgent the caller sounded. A neighbour had once shared such a code and lost a month's pension in a few minutes. Lakshmi repeats the warning to every visitor who asks about her account.
Lakshmi's story is not a story about machines. The machine had already existed; what changed was that a patient officer, a camp in her own village and a receipt she could hold made the machine usable for her. A bank can count the accounts it opens, but inclusion should be counted differently: by whether a woman like Lakshmi can use her account alone next month, without a middleman and without fear.
Q1.What is the central idea of the passage about Lakshmi?
- Machines alone solve every problem faced by pensioners in villages.
- Bank camps should be held only in towns, where the machines work best.
- Inclusion is real only when a person like Lakshmi can use her account alone, without a middleman and without fear, because patient help and a receipt made the machine usable for her.
- Middlemen are the safest way for pensioners to collect their money.
- Fingerprints never work for elderly people, so accounts should not be opened for them.
Q2.According to the passage, why was collecting her pension difficult for Lakshmi before the camp?
- She had no bank account and no pension was due to her.
- The pension office refused to pay women.
- She lived too far from the town to travel at all.
- She travelled to the town, waited in long queues, and sometimes returned without the money because the office had closed.
- The middleman collected the pension for her free of charge.
Q3.How was the problem with Lakshmi's fingerprints solved at the camp?
- The officer gave up and paid her pension in cash instead.
- The machine was sent away for repair and the camp ended early.
- Lakshmi was asked to come back after a month.
- The officer asked her son to withdraw the money on her behalf.
- The officer tried her other fingers, updated her details, and linked her pension to a bank account in her own name.