58,000 more bank correspondents Sakhi appointed in Uttar Pradesh

New Delhi: At least 58,000 Bank Correspondent (BC) Sakhis have been appointed in Uttar Pradesh under the “Ek Gram Panchayat Ek Banking Correspondent” scheme which was launched by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, said a release on Sunday.

The scheme is to promote self-reliance in women, their empowerment and Digital India.

“Through these BCs, promotion and awareness of various financial inclusion products along with banking facilities will be carried out in the future. For this, common service centers have been established in every village in the rural areas,” the Chief Minister said in a release.

For providing banking facilities in the villages, the state has been divided into 27,628 Sub Service Areas (SSA). These SSAs have been formed on a population of 4,000 to 6,000 in a radius of five kms.

“Besides this, the Bank Mitras (BM) are doing Adhaar based and RuPay card-based transactions and the process of activating inactive BMs and appointing new BMs is also being carried out,” he added.

There are 59,000 gram panchayats in the state and 64,000 BCs were already employed. Now, 58,000 BCs more have been appointed. Now, there are 1.22 lakh who are providing services not only in the gram panchayats but also in the neighboring localities.

Banking facilities are being provided through more than 1.2 lakh banking centres, 19,038 bank branches, 18,944 ATMs and 64,172 BMs.

With the expansion of the banking network in the state, there is an outlet at 2.38 km improving the service area of the banking outlet in the quarter ended in September 2020 as compared to March 2020. Banking services have expanded further from September last year to February 2021, the release said.