BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha government on Wednesday roped in six public sector banks for providing banking services in unbanked gram panchayats of the state through customer service point (CSP) plus banking outlets.
The banks are State Bank of India (SBI), Punjab National Bank (PNB), Union Bank of India (UBI), UCO Bank, Bank of India (BoI) and Bank of Baroda (BoB). Odisha is the first state in the country to adopt such exemplary model for providing banking services to all panchayats. Though financial inclusion is a high priority agenda of the government, it continues to be a critical challenge since banking penetration in the state is quite low and not uniform across districts.
Of the 6,798 panchayats, around 65 per cent (4,373) do not have brick and mortar branches. Since banking is an essential service for financial inclusion, every panchayat of the state needs to be provided with a brick and mortar branch for easy access to banking services and strengthening the direct benefit transfer system. In August, the state cabinet had approved a scheme under which brick-and-mortar infrastructure will be offered to banks to roll out their services in all 4,373 unbanked gram panchayats through CSP plus outlets with a budgetary support of `500 crore.
The scheme will be implemented in a phased manner to cover all unbanked panchayats from the current financial year. As decided, the state government will provide rent free banking space for five years and bear one-time expenses for fixed cost and recurring expenses for a period of three years. This is one of the landmark initiatives by any state government to transform financial inclusion and take it to the next level in line with the 5T initiatives of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.
Finance Minister Bikram Keshari Arukha said people residing in all unbanked gram panchayats of the state will have easy access to all kinds of banking services, free of cost. An MoU was signed with the banks in the presence of development commissioner Anu Garg, principal secretary of Finance department Vishal Kumar Dev and senior officials.
Novel initiative
The banks will extend services in unbanked gram panchayats
Govt to offer infra to banks to roll out services in 4,373 unbanked gram panchayats
Banks will be given rent free space for five years