CABINET APPROVES INDIA
POST PAYMENTS BANK PROPOSAL
Govt will set up 650 branches of the Postal Payments Bank by September 2017,
says Ravi Shankar Prasad
New Delhi: The government on Wednesday cleared a proposal to set up the India
Post payments bank with a corpus of Rs.800 crore and has plans to have 650
branches operational by September 2017, telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
said.
“The Cabinet has cleared proposal of postal payments bank. We have 1.54 lakh
post offices of which 1.39 lakh are rural post offices. 650 branches of postal
payments bank will be established in the country which will be linked to rural
post offices,” Prasad said.
The minister said the payments bank, which will be run by a chief executive
officer, will be professionally managed and there will be a representation from
various other government departments including the Department of Posts,
Department of Expenditure, Department of Economic Services etc.
“Total architecture of postal payments bank is of Rs 800 crore which will have
Rs 400 crore equity and Rs 400 crore grant. By
September 2017, all 650 branches of postal payments bank will become
operational. This we had planned
for three years but now we will be doing it in a year,” Prasad said.
He said that all rural post offices
will be given handheld devices by March 2017. “We are reinforcing it further. I have had discussion with my officers
to give iPad and smartphones to postmen in urban post offices,” Prasad said. At
present, there are 22,137 post offices with core banking facility compared to
State Bank of India’s 1,666 branches.
Source: PTI
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