Patna, Aug. 20: Canara Bank has opened 11 new branches in rural areas as part of the state government’s financial inclusion programme under which every family has to be provided with banking facilities.
S. Raman, chairman and managing director of the bank, along with Reserve Bank of India deputy governor K.C. Chakrabarty and the bank’s executive director, Archana S. Bhargava, unveiled a series of rural outreach activities in the state.
The bank opened 11 rural branches and 11 ATM counters with its 3,333rd branch at Bargaon in Nalanda district. At present, the bank has 109 branches in the state and 35 ATM kiosks. About 1,000 smart cards and 2,000 Kisan Credit Cards were distributed apart from providing credit link to 500 self-help groups and opening of 10 farmers’ clubs and rural health clinic at Bargaon as part of its rural activities.
On the bank’s target to cover villages under financial inclusion programme, Raman said: “We have been ordered to provide banking facilities to 164 villages each of which have a population of more than 2,000 by the end of this fiscal. We have opened 11 branches today and eight other branches would be opened soon.”
Raman said: “We will use banking correspondents model in around 90 per cent of villages assigned to us.”
Explaining how the bank would meet the target of providing banking facilities to all these villages, Raman said: “We will use banking correspondents model in around 90 per cent of villages assigned to us. Under this model, these correspondents will visit the village with a hand-held machine who will provide banking facilities (deposits, withdrawals and account opening).”
Deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi, during a state-level banker committee meet in the capital, recently made it categorical that banks have to achieve the target of bringing every village, with a population of more than 2,000, under the banking net by the end of March 2012. Of 9,214 such villages, the banks have been able to extend their facilities in about 2,500 villages.
Raman, who accepted that banks’ credit-deposit ratio is 40 per cent in Bihar against the national figure of 72 per cent, said: “Credit-deposit ratio in Bihar will improve in future with growth. We see opportunity in the state. We keep reading about the improvement the state has been making. It will certainly help in economic and banking growth in the state. Every state has its own problem. Bihar too, has the problem of power and law and order. But now the people have started coming back to the state after improvement in law and order situation.”
