Additional Chief Secretary, Finance UN Behera on Tuesday said an action plan has been prepared by the State level Bankers’ Committee (SlBC) to facilitate banking services in all the 4,597 unbanked gram panchayats (GPs) across the State. The move came after a direction was given to the SlBC by the State Government recently.
According to sources, the Government has asked the banks having operations in the State to use data of the Panchayati Raj (PR) Department for opening bank accounts in the rural areas for ensuring financial inclusion.
“A detailed enumeration of families done by the PR Department will be shared with the banks to help them (banks) identify the people for opening of accounts so that one or two accounts can be opened for every family,” said Behera at a special SlBC meeting on Comprehensive Financial Inclusion (Sampoorn Vitteeyea Samaveshan) on Tuesday.
Notably, the State Government had asked the banks to cover all the 4,597 unbanked GPs within a period of three years, but later it was extended to five years ending March 31, 2019.
Behera also suggested that the PR department can help banks organise camps for opening of accounts. A drive would be undertaken to open as many as accounts in one year (between August 15, 2014 and 2015) on a mission mode. Efforts would be made to open two bank accounts, he added.
Out of the total 4,597 brick and mortar branches to be opened by banks in the unbanked GPs, public sector banks would open their branches in as many as 3,048 GPs while private banks would cover 861 unbanked GPs.
The Odisha Gramya Bank and the Utkal Grameen Bank have been allocated 331 and 357 GPs, respectively. In order to extend banking facilities to all the GPs, the State Government has assured that the banks would be provided space in panchayat buildings and Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras free of cost for the next five years. The commercial banks opening their branches in unbanked GPs would be given access to Government funds meant for that panchayat.
Recently, the State had constituted a 19-member committee under the chairmanship of the Chief Secretary. While the SlBC Convener would be the Member-Secretary, a director of institutional finance would be the Mission Director.