As a part of Reserve Bank of India’s outreach programme, RBI deputy Governor Anand Sinha visited Arua village in Faridabad district of Haryana on Thursday. Arua, which is one of RBI’s model villages, has achieved 100% financial inclusion. Syndicate Bank, which has opened a branch in this village, has opened 915 no frills account for villagers in the past few months.
Anand Sinha. RBI deputy Governor
The outreach programme is aimed at spreading the message of financial inclusion and financial literacy and checking the progress of the spread of banking facilities in the area. RBI had started its outreach programme in 2010, wherein a team from RBI goes to villages across the country and interacts with the people there about banking facilities and also helps them in getting accounts opened, guides them on how they can avail loans from banks and also tells them about various government schemes that the people can avail of.
In his address to the villagers, Sinha elaborated the advantages of opening a bank account. “If you go to keep money in your homes, either it may become bad, get stolen or the value of your money will be static and won’t increase. If you keep it in the bank you’ll get returns”.
Sinha said banks are using a combination of the banking correspondent model and brick and mortar branches to achieve financial inclusion.
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“You can’t have one model, it has to be a combo of al. Because as far as the BC model is concerned it’s very important as a brick and mortar may not be very economical. But brick and mortar branches have their own advantage”, he said.
RBI has asked banks to provide banking facilities to 70,000 villages having population of more than 2,000 people by March this year. Sinha added that banks are on track to achieve this target.