The Punjab National Bank (PNB) today launched a pilot project on mobile or branchless banking service at Daringibadi in tribal dominated and backward Kandhamal district, which is in the news recently for prolonged ethnic and religious strife.
The project aims to reach out to people in remote areas not yet covered by banking service and bring them into the fold by opening no frills account in their name. “It is a technology based financial inclusion (FI) project and aims to cover vast number of un-banked rural people", said chairman-cum-managing director of the PSU bank, K.C. Chakrabarty.
The bank selected Kandhamal district in the state to launch this pilot project as large number of people in this tribal district are unaware of the benefits of banking, he told reporters at Gopalpur, about 15 kms from here on Sunday evening prior to launching the pilot project. Only 80,000 out of 6.50 lakh people of the district are accessing banking services.
"Initially the project will cover Dringibadi area, the biggest block of the state and gradually it will be extended to other parts of the district”, BP Sharma, the head of the bank, Orissa circle, said. The New Delhi headquartered bank aimed to extend the services to other backward districts of the state including Gajapati, he said.
Chakrabarty also inaugurated the bank’s new and 62nd branch in the state along with a bio-metric ATM at Daringibadi. Orissa project is the eleventh such initiative of PNB, which intends to cover 30,000 villages, 15 million households and 75 million people by 2010 next under the rural financial inclusion programme. Of this, the bank has already covered 10,886 villages and opened 5.32 lakh no frills accounts so far, he claimed.
PNB earlier launched such pilot projects at Neemrana in Rajasthan, Patna and Gaya in Bihar, Sharanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Ranchi in Jharkhand, Dehradun in Uttarakhand, Taran Trana in Punjab and Kullu and Mandi in Himanchal Pradesh.
The bio-metric cards, thermal filter and near filed communication ((NFC) mobile handsets are required to operate this unique banking service in the rural areas where facilities of modern technology are not available. “The system is very cost effective and requirs less manpower. It also helps in providing banking service at the doorstep of the people in far flung areas without opening new branches", the chairman of the bank said.
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