Lucknow, March 28 (IANS) Efforts of the Uttar Pradesh government to increase the ratio of banks to population in the state are set to get a major boost Friday as union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram comes here to inaugurate 300 new bank branches.
The new bank branches, to be inaugurated in the presence of Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, come up after months of lobbying by the state government with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) that the state needed at least 3,000 new branches to come at par with the all India ratio of banks per population.
As soon as unanimity on the need to expand the banking base was arrived at between the two sides, a detailed timeline for the opening up of the new branches was charted out.
Under the timeline, 300 new bank branches would be opened in March, 450 in June, 600 in September, 750 in December and 900 in March 2014.
Over 70 percent of these branches would be coming up in the countryside, a state government spokesman told IANS.
"Care has been taken that these new bank branches come up in development blocks with a predominant minority population and villages with at least 2,000 population," he said.
The state government had asked district magistrates to offer space in panchayat bhawans and take the necessary help from the panchayati raj department and advice from the institutional finance department.
Broadband connectivity to these new branches in far-flung areas has been offered by the BSNL. The security of these bank branches is also being ensured.
The participating banks include public sector Allahabad Bank, Bank of India, Syndicate Bank, Union Bank of India, Canara Bank, and private sector HDFC, Indusind Bank, Shreyas Grameen Bank and others.
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