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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