A panel consisting of bankers and experts related to financial institutions has been set up by Finance Minister P Chidambaram for preparing a blueprint for setting up an all-women's bank, announcement which he had made in his Budget Speech.
Incidentally the setting up the committee came on Friday, the International Women's Day.
"The committee has been asked to submit the blueprint for women bank by April 30," he said while talking to reporters after the customary post-budget meeting with RBI here.
Chidambaram in his budget speech on February 28 proposed setting up of country's first all-women bank and had earmarked `1,000 crore for this. The bank will be fully owned by the Government.
The committee will be headed by former Canara Bank chairman M B N Rao. Its members are M D Mallya, former CMD of Bank of Baroda, Jayshree Vyas, Managing Director SEWA, Arundhati Bhattacharya, MD & CEO of SBI Caps, Usha Ananthasubramanian, Executive Director, Punjab National Bank, and K Ramakrishnan, Chief Executive of Indian Banks' Association.
Chidambaram had earlier said that the all-women bank would start operations from November this year through six branches spread across the length and breadth of the country.
"It will be inaugurated in November. Initially, we should start with at least one branch in each major region of this country, South, West, East, Centre, North and North-east. So that will mean immediately we should start with six branches," he had said earlier.