Secretary Financial Services GS Sandhu announced for meeting with IBA (Indian Bankers Association) today on issues of salary revision of bankers to break dead locks as earliest as possible at an Assocham event held in New Delhi today.
"Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is negotiating with the banks employees as there is a gap between the demand and offer and we will try to resolve the deadlocks very soon." We are also going to call IBA to break this dead block as earliest as possible, said Sandhu at an Assocham event.
Replying on the RBI monetary policy, Sandhu said, "RBI fully understands the issue, it fully understands needs and expectation of markets, so they will take a view (on cutting policy rates) when the time is right."
Sandhu said, one of the important thing which was recently announced was the bank-recapitalization to meet the future challenges for growing economy and high trajectory. The ministry is preparing a blueprint on this and raising capital from the market and from other potential resources.
He further said, the number of accounts opened under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has touched nearly around 5.1 crore account and 1.6 crore RuPay debit cards have been issued so far, said Sandhu at an Assocham event
In order to provide the much needed thrust a flagship programme called the "Pradhan Mantri Jan-Dhan Yojana" was announced by Prime Minister. He said, National Mission on financial inclusion encompassing an integrated approach to bring about comprehensive financial inclusion of all the households in the country. The plan envisages universal access to banking facilities with at least one basic banking account for every household, financial literacy, access to credit, insurance and pension facility, said Secretary, Financial Services.
In addition, the beneficiaries would get RuPay Debit card having inbuilt accident insurance covers of Rs 1 Lakh. The plan also envisages channeling all government benefits to the beneficiaries account and pushing the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) scheme of the union government, added Sandhu.
The technological issues like poor connectivity, on-line transactions will be addressed. Mobile transactions through telecom operators and their established centres as Cash Out Points are also planned to be used for financial inclusion under the scheme, points out the Secretary of Financial Services.
R K Gupta, executive director of Bank of Maharashtra said, "Financial inclusion is nothing but providing banking & financial services to everyone in fair, transparent & equitable manner and at an affordable cost."
Gupta further said, bank have perhaps the largest stake in the success of financial inclusion. However to realize this opportunity, they will need to create an entirely new portfolio of products and services delivered through radically different distribution structures which are aligned to the needs and lifestyles of the financially excluded consumer.
While addressing the conference, Sunil Kanoria, President-elect Assocham said that we need to think out of box and experiment with the new models of banking where banking penetration will not depend on bricks-and-mortar offices, but no technology. Mobile banking is something which needs to be considered seriously. Mobile technology has changed our lives and the way we communicate and do business. It has the potential to redefine banking too. There is already a national drive going on in the country to create an electronic infrastructure in the form of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or the Aadhaar platform.
