Fin inclusion, UID to be dovetailed for greater benefits

MUMBAI: Two of the Government's most ambitious schemes--the financial inclusion plan of catering to the unbanked population and the Nandan Nilenkani-headed UID project will be integrated for better benefits to the people.

"The financial inclusion plans will be dovetailed with the UID project and the bank accounts will also be used for the delivery of various government social benefit schemes like NREGA and old age pensions," an Indian Banks' Association (IBA) press release said quoting the Additional Secretary in the Department of Financial Services, Rahul Singh.

Singh chaired a meeting at the Indian Banks Association (IBA) office attended by the chiefs of eight public sector banks from western India, including the country's largest lender State Bank of India.

He also expressed confidence that the target of taking banking services to 73,000 habitations with population of over 2,000 will be achieved by March 2012.

"All of them (the banks) feel that they are well prepared and on the right track to meet the goals. Everybody has been allotted villages to be covered and formulated strategies which were discussed at a review on Thursday," Indian Banks Association (IBA) Chief Executive, K Ramakrishnan, told PTI.

He said the banks have divided their targets into two--one each for this fiscal and the next.

"Most of the time during the first six-months has gone in getting the infrastructure, training people and putting up the technology infrastructure in place. Once this is done, you will see much more momentum," another IBA executive said.