Itanagar: Only 40 per cent of the total
population in the country have bank accounts and two
per cent use credit cards, NABARD General Manager, B M
Mukhopadhyay said today.
This was so because of low banking literacy of the
people, especially the poor, Mukhopadhyay told a financial
outreach programme, organised by the RBI,at village Borum,
near here.
To improve the situation, seven crore no-frill
accounts with zero deposits were opened in the last three
years, he said.
Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Pudducherry had achieved a high
percentage of banking literacy he said and expressed the hope
that other states would catch up soon.
Mukhapadhaya said to make banking services accessible to
the weaker groups, his bank had launched a special drive in
Tirap, Changlang, Lohit, East Kameng and Dibang Valley
districts in Arunachal Pradesh having abysmally low level of
financial inclusion as per the Rangarajan committee report.
RBI executive director G Gopalkrishna said the
poor people who had no collateral securities might obtain bank
loans through self-help groups.
SBI Chief General Manager(NE,) A K Deb said banks were
constrained to sanction loans in the absense of official land
records if land was forwarded as collateral security.
Bureau Report
First Published: Wednesday, October 21, 2009, 19:53