(a) whether the Government has taken any steps for opening of brick and mortar bank branches of Scheduled Commercial Banks in each of the unbanked Gram Panchayats in the country including Odisha within the target period of five years by March, 2019;
(b) if so, the details thereof and if not, reasons thereof; and
(c) the time by which the Government has addressed the above issue?
The Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance
(a) to (c) Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has issued Banking Outlets Guidelines which grant general permission to domestic Scheduled Commercial Banks (other than Regional Rural Banks) to open Banking Outlets without RBI’s prior approval subject to at least 25% of the banking outlets opened during a financial year being in unbanked rural centres.
Further, RBI has advised State Level Banker’s Committee Convenor Banks to identify unbanked rural centres in villages with population above 5,000, and ensure that they are banked by opening of CBS enabled banking outlet by December 31, 2017.
******