nondescript village of Doba in Kudu block of Lohardaga district on the
banking map of India today as he withdrew Rs 100 from his newly opened
account.
Watching him
create history was Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor D. Subbarao,
who, as part of RBI’s ambitious outreach programme aimed at financial
inclusion, inaugurated a smart card-based satellite banking system in
the village earlier in the day.
As Kujur received
his money from business agent Reena, who has been employed by Bank of
India (BoI) that has opened a new branch in neighbouring Tati village,
it was a dream come true for his fellow villagers who now have banks
literally on their doorstep.
After reaching the tiny village surrounded by sakhua trees, the RBI chief disarmed his hosts by stating: “Main Mumbai se aaya hoon, main RBI governor hoon, main chahata hoon ki har gram in bank se jude (I have come from Mumbai. I am the RBI governor and I wish that all the villages use banking services).”
The satellite
banking system that Subbarao inaugurated works with the help of a
GPRS-enabled hand-held device, which is operated by business agents
employed by the banks to provide services in remote villages.
The device has
three main features — a slot to insert a smart card, which will be given
to villagers who open accounts with a nationalised bank, a space to
record fingerprints as authentication and a rectangular display board
that displays messages and speaks as well to illiterate villagers.
As soon as Kujur
withdrew Rs 100, the message board displayed that he had Rs 395 left in
his account, which was confirmed by the account holder.
Chief secretary
A.K. Singh, who was present on the occasion, said during his tour of
Chatra he was aghast to find villagers encashing their Rs 100 cheques
for Rs 70 in order to avoid complicated bank transactions and delays.
“In many instances, I found it took about two months for poor MGNREGS
labourers to encash their cheques and they had to travel miles to avail
banking services. Now, I hope the satellite-based smart card system will
solve their problem,” he said.
It was also an opportune moment for the chief secretary to air his grievances on behalf of the people.
“The banks
operating in the state have never achieved the target of distribution of
Kisan Credit Cards. Cash deposit ratio is a meagre 43 per cent here
compared to the national average of 73 per cent. Moreover, there is one
bank for a population of 18,000 while RBI’s mandate is to open a bank in
a village/area with a population of 2,000,” he said, much to the
concern of top officials of various nationalised banks who were present.
State Bank of
India has already distributed 67 smart cards in Doba village and aims to
open 800 accounts soon.The accounts are being opened at the SBI branch
in the district headquarters of Lohardaga, but the villagers will not
need to visit the branch and instead can rely on the business agent who
will visit their village regularly to allow the account holders to
withdraw/deposit money.
SBI’s deputy
general manager R. Venkatachalam, Patna-based general manager D.
Majumdar and Jharkhand-based deputy general manager Pinak Chakraborty
were present on the occasion today.