In an effort to streamline availability of currency notes in rural areas, Chief Secretary AP Padhi on Wednesday asked different banks to engage trusted SHGs and Odisha livelihood Mission Bank Mitras as Banking Correspondents (BCs) to provide bank services to people in unbanked gram panchayats at the earliest.
“These people will man operation in 4,400 unbanked gram panchayat offices, Chief Secretary AP Padhi told reporters after chairing the Bank-Administration coordination meeting at the State Secretariat.
Padhi too advised the banks to engage eligible GP and block employees as BCs for currency exchange work.
Besides banks, Post Offices would also take deposits of old notes and allow withdrawals of new notes now.
Those who have no Savings Banck account in Post Offices can open new accounts and make transitions now. There are now 7,000 branch offices working in the State. It was revealed that there are a total of 6,065 ATMs working across the State. Of them, 75 per cent have been functional.
Various banks have engaged a total of 8,251 BCs so far and, of them, 84 per cent are working. As of now, old currencies worth `6,000 crore have been exchanged with new notes. Besides, deposits and withdrawals are being done through Saving Accounts.
Among others, Finance Principal Secretary Tuhinkant Mishra, Panchayati Raj Secretary Deo Ranjan Singh, RBI GM Prasanna Kumar Das and representatives of various banks were present.