The little more than 400 residents of the Cuenca town of Buendía have an ATM thanks to an initiative promoted by the regional government and which is the result of the protocol signed between the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development and the Castilian Manchega Network of Rural Development (Recamder), in December of last year.
Everything, with the aim of contributing to the fight against depopulation and mitigating the financial exclusion of people who live in towns, something that has become a reality thanks to the signing of a collaboration agreement with the company Prosegur Cash, has informed the Board in a press release.
The Minister of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development, Francisco Martínez Arroyo, has traveled to Buendía, where this new service that is so necessary for the residents, mostly older people, who are forced to move to smaller municipalities, has been launched. surrounding areas to be able to access this service.
This ATM has been located in the vicinity of the Multipurpose Social Center, a space that the City Council itself has ceded and that is the first of the hundred planned – for which there is an investment of 3.5 million euros.
Its start-up has meant today for Buendía a day of celebration and its achievement comes hand in hand with the decision of the Alcarria Conquense Rural Development Group, thanks to the fact that the regional Executive has directed the funds of the rural development program of the region to what is done in the groups in the territory. And, “the groups have had the thought of the people who live in the territory and need services,” said the counselor.
In this way, he has underlined that “empty speeches can be made in what has to do with rural development, with the demographic challenge” and the launch of this ATM, “is rural development, this is demographic challenge, this is work for the people and, above all, with the people who live in our towns”, he said.
Accompanied by the mayor of the town, Gregorio Martínez; the president of Recamder, Jesús Ortega; the president of the Alcarria Conquense group, Vicente Caballero and the representative of Prosegur Cash, Policarpo Ledesma, among others, Martínez Arroyo has indicated that the implication is “total and absolute with initiatives like this”, for which he has thanked everyone for “having been pulling the cart, because it hasn’t been easy.”
