Chief minister, Naveen Patnaik today opened the first Gram Panchayat Banking Outpost at Sikiri in Orissa’s Ganjam district, set up by the State Bank of India (SBI) in collaboration with the panchayat raj department of the state government.
The Gram Panchayat Banking Outpost is the first of its kind in the country and the concept is introduced by the SBI to disburse wages under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) at the door step through the electronic benefit transfer (EBT).
“The payment will directly reach the account of the beneficiary through EBT. The beneficiaries can draw funds from the SBI’s Outpost through a biometric identification process”, said the chief general manager of SBI (Orissa), Shiva Kumar. Each beneficiary would be provided the Identity Card by the bank having all the basic information of the person.
The first payment through this new platform was successfully made to one of the beneficiaries at Sikiri, about 30 km from here in the presence of the chief minister and panchayat raj minister, Prafulla Samal.
The bank disbursed payments to 18 beneficiaries on the launching day of the outpost. Most of the beneficiaries belong to Ramchandrapur panchyat in Sikiri block.
“Apart from ensuring quick payment, the new system will help to curb corruption in the payment of the wages under the scheme”, panchayat raj minister said. In due course, he said, this will be introduced in all 6234 gram panchayats of the state in phases.
