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The State Level Bankers' Committee (SLBC) has prepared an action plan to provide banking services in all the 4,597 unbanked gram panchayats in Odisha.
At the last SLBC meeting held in May this year, U N Behera, additional chief secretary (finance), Odisha had directed banks to open branches in the unbanked gram panchayats (GPs) by March 2017.
However, banks have expressed their inability to complete the task within three years as suggested by the state government and have instead sought five years to cover the unbanked GPs.
"Keeping in view the existing infrastructure (connectivity, power supply, communication) as well as manpower and viability aspect, it was viewed by all banks that it would be a herculean task to open huge number of branches in the unbanked GPs within three years. Hence, it was unanimously decided to achieve the task in five years (2014-15 to 2018-19) instead of three years," S K Nandi, convenor, SLBC (Odisha) has written to Behera.
The SLBC has sought the concurrence of the state government for extending the timeline to five years for covering the unbanked GPs. Brick and mortar branches would be set up in these GPs untouched by banking services. Ganjam district tops the list of unbanked GPs with 349 panchayats followed by Cuttack (242), Kalahandi (228), Keonjhar (220) and Jajpur (218). Deogarh has only 43 unbanked GPs, the least among the 30 districts.
Among the commercial banks, country's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has been allotted 576 unbanked GPs for opening of branches. The Odisha Gramya Bank and Utkal Grameen Bank have been allotted 331 and 357 GPs respectively. Among the private sector banks, ICICI Bank has been mandated to cover 194 GPs for opening of branches followed by Axis Bank (189) and HDFC Bank (178). The newly formed Bharatiya Mahila Bank has been assigned to open branches in 20 unbanked GPs. For bringing all the GPs under the ambit of banking, the state government has assured that banks coming forward to open branches in the unbanked GPs will be provided space at the panchayat buildings and Rajiv Gandhi Seva Kendras free of cost for five years. A roadmap by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has envisaged banking services in every village with population below 2,000 out of 45,778 identified villages and establishment of 2,361 brick and mortar branches by March 2015.
