Odisha asks banks to take services to 2,382 villages by Sept 2018

A list of unbanked villages has been prepared and shared with the banks

Odisha has asked private and public sector banks to deploy business correspondents (BCs) in 2,300 unbanked villages for extending banking facilities. 

"A list of 2,382 unbanked villages has been prepared and shared with the banks having operations in the state. They are asked to cover the unbanked villages by deploying business correspondents through banking outlet model," said an official.

The BCs will be required to go to each village and do the usual business for four hours for five days a week, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. We expect that these unbanked villages will be covered by September this year, added the official.   

Unbanked villages are those where either there is no brick & mortar branch or banking services are not available within five kilometres.    

A 'banking outlet' for a domestic scheduled commercial bank (DSCB), a small finance bank (SFB) and a payment bank (PB) is a fixed-point service delivery unit, manned by either bank staff or its business correspondent, where services of acceptance of deposits, encashment of cheques/cash withdrawal or lending of money are provided for a minimum of four hours per day for at least five days a week.

The state government is also nudging SFBs to go for banking outlets in inaccessible areas by sending BCs.   

Suryodaya Small Finance Bank, headquartered in Navi Mumbai, and Ujjivan Small Finance Bank have started their operations in Bhubaneswar in November 2017.

SFBs shall primarily undertake basic banking activities of acceptance of deposits and lending to unserved and underserved sections, including small business units, small and marginal farmers, micro and small industries and unorganised sector entities. There is no restriction in the area of operations of SFBs. 

Last year, the RBI, along with the Odisha government, had impressed upon PBs and SFBs to extend their banking network to unbanked areas of the state.