NEW DELHI: While ensuring that 7.5 crore under privileged households that do not have access to banking would be brought under the ambit of financial inclusion through a campaign to be launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August, efforts will also be made to expand the mobile telephony to make banking available on all kinds of mobile phones and all the under-privileged households will be provided with two bank accounts, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told media after his meeting with heads of public sector banks.
“The objective is to reach every household possible and have at least two account holders in every house. Currently, financial inclusion and the reach of the banking systems extends to about 58-59 per cent and therefore the dark areas which are not covered these include about 7.5 crore households,” he said.
“The intention is, in a mission mode, to have a formal campaign which will be announced by the Prime Minister and then throughout the country to have a campaign for inclusion. This campaign for inclusion will be at various layers.”
Elaborating the step by step concept of inclusion, Jaitley said that in some areas where branches are possible, the regular brick and mortar branches will be created. “Where it is not possible, there smaller branches manned by one or two people would be created.”
Following the brick and mortar branches would be a layer that would have kiosks, he said, adding that yet another layer below, will be ATMs and then the human contact through business correspondents.
“In the course of next two years, we hope to make a considerable headway. The unit for contact is not a village, it is a person and therefore it is a higher level of ambition which we are trying to reach,” he added.