Dear Comrades,
Soon, post offices in remote areas of the country
will serve as banks and offer automated teller machine (ATM) facility. The
Planning Commission of India has agreed to allow the Department of Postal
Services to install ATMs in post offices. The postal department has a network of
1.44 lakh post offices across India with
deposits worth Rs 5,60,000 crore.
Minister of State for Telecom Sachin Pilot said the department proposed the
Post Bank scheme in an attempt to use the huge network of post offices to foster
inclusive growth and ensure people in far-flung areas get benefit from the
government’s welfare schemes. Post offices have 25 crore accounts apart from
five crore MGNREGA workers.
The postal department has identified over 830 post offices where the ATMs
will be installed. The department’s ATMs will be linked with other public sector
banks too.
“Their (post office) saving account will be just like any other bank
account,” a senior government official said. The department provides various
financial services, including a post office savings bank, postal life insurance,
pension payments and money transfer services.
The plan panel recently agreed to the department’s proposal and decided to
sanction funds in the 12th five-year plan for installing ATMs in each post
office. The panel had sanctioned Rs five crore in the 11th five year plan to
conduct a study on the setting up Post Bank of India on lines of the ones in New
Zealand and Japan.
The decision is aimed at making the post offices as an important catalyst in
improving the delivery of welfare schemes, for which the Central government
allocated over Rs 1,80,000 crore in the budget of 2011-12.
Already, a large number of people enrolled under Mahatma Gandhi National
Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGA) have their accounts in post offices
where their wages get credited. But the limitation of being able to access their
accounts during working hours of the post offices was a cause of inconvenience.
Chetan
Chauhan, Hindustan Times New Delhi, September 26, 2011
