The India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), a lifeline for the ailing postal department, was unveiled Saturday in West Bengal, Sikkim and Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Bengal Circle) with 27 branches and 135 touch points in the post offices.
IPPB will initially have 650 branches and 3,250 access points at the post offices across the country.
West Bengal circle Chief Postmaster General Arundhati Ghosh said the remaining 8,942 post ofices in the circle will function as acces points gradually in a phased manner by the end of December this year.
By then, some 1.5 lakh post offices across the country would also get connected in phases.
Union minister of Law and Justice and minister of Electronics & IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the postal department got a new role, new responsibility to take banking services to every households of the country.
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He said the country has 121 crore mobile phones of which 45 crore are smartphones. The country has issued 122 crore Aadhaar cards out of 130 crore population.
IPPB requires an Adhaar linkage to open a zero balance account.
Speaking about the country's economic scenario, Prasad said, "We have surpassed France to become sixth largest economy of the World and growing at 8.2 per cent."
Prasad said the operations of the IPPB would strengthen the financial inclusion programme in India and make the countrys village systems stronger.
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