Guwahati: Altogether 26 branches of India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) were started in Assam, as the service was launched nationwide by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Delhi on Saturday .

Launching the IPPB branches in Assam, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, said, "Out of 1.55 lakh post offices in the country, 1.30 lakh are situated in the rural areas where the formal banking system is inaccessible. People living in 26,000 villages, 800 tea gardens and 2,400 sar areas scattered across the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys will now be able to connect to the formal banking system through IPPB."

"The service will be taken to customers within December via 4,011 branches and access points, 93 per cent of which will be based in the rural areas," Sonowal said.

He said IPPB would eliminate intermediaries by directly transferring benefits of government schemes to the beneficiaries in cashless transactions.

Terming the occasion momentous, education minister Siddhartha Bhattacharya said, "This will transform the old postal department into a new avatar attached with technology."

Assam postal circle's chief post master general Biswapawan Padhi said services like opening of savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfer, bill payment, merchant payment and loans will be available through IPPB.

In Arunachal Pradesh, chief minister Pema Khandu launched IPPB on Saturday in the presence of deputy chief minister Chowna Mein.

"IPPB services will be available in 10 branches and 50 access points across the state," Khandu said at the Dorjee Khandu Convention Centre here while participating in the nationwide launch of the services by Modi which was relayed from Talkatora Stadium in New Delhi.

In Nagaland, chief secretary R. Binchilo Thong launched the IPPB Kohima branch and released the special cover on financial inclusion. In Dimapur, deputy commissioner Sushil Kumar Patel launched the same.

Additional reporting by Damien Lepcha and Bhadra Gogoi