CM urges Centre to ask banks to open branches in all GPs

 Bhubaneswar: Odisha Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi on Thursday urged the Centre to ask all banks at their apex level to open branches in unbanked gram panchayats (GPs) in the State. Majhi made this appeal to the Centre while participating in the 27th meeting of the Eastern Zonal Council chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in Ranchi.

He said out of 6,794 gram panchayats in Odisha, only 2,421 GPs have brick and mortar branches. The remaining 4,373 GPs do not have any brick and mortar branch. Noting that the geographical penetration of banks in Odisha is quite low, the Chief Minister said there are 42,035 fixed point BCs (banking correspondents) operating in the State as on December 2024. However, BCs have their own limitation in terms of services offered and cash handling, he said. Besides, network issues also impede BC operations in the remote areas, Majhi said. He said the banks were not following uniform guidelines for paying commission to the BCs based on the services offered by them.

The IPPB (India Post Payments Bank) has only 33 branches and 8,929 facility access points in the State. However, they are not covering all unbanked GPs in the State, Majhi said. Therefore, in order to meet the banking needs in unbanked/under banked GPs, the Odisha government, in collaboration with six public sector banks, has launched a scheme for providing banking services to all unbanked GPs of the State through CSP (Customer Service Point) plus banking outlets, the Chief Minister said. Odisha is the only State in the country to adopt such a unique model of financial inclusion, he said.

The CSP-plus banking outlets are providing major banking services just like a brick and mortar branches, Majhi said, adding that so far, 2,742 CSP plus banking outlets have been opened in 2,742 unbanked GPs covering all 30 districts. The remaining 1,631 unbanked GPs will be covered by CSP plus banking outlets soon, he said.

The Chief Minister also said that the Odisha government was making necessary arrangements for providing electricity connection and internet connectivity for smooth functioning of the CSP plus banking outlets in all unbanked GPs of the State. The State is also bearing the one-time fixed cost component, including banking space and monthly recurring cost for specified items for first three years since opening of CSP plus banking outlets, he said. Majhi requested the Central government to advise all banks at their apex level to open brick and mortar branches in unbanked GPs in Odisha.