State Bank of Patiala opens seven branches in different districts of Punjab

State Bank of Patiala, a public sector lender headquartered in Patiala has opened seven brick and mortar branches in its Bathinda and Jalandhar zones with an aim to provide banking facility to the rural people of Punjab. The new branches have been opened in the districts of Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Amritsar.

Bank managing director Ashok Nayar, told, bank is planning to open 20 branches in the identified villages which will be covered under the financial inclusion drive. Out of these, 11 branches will be opened in Punjab and nine in other states of India. The branches to be opened in the villages under financial inclusion program are provided by the lead bank under the guidelines of Reserve Bank of India.

Through these branches bank will be providing loan and banking facilities to the rural people. The bank is proposed to cover 500 villages during the current year under Financial Inclusion, out of which these 263 villages will be of Punjab. In rest of the villages bank will provide services through business correspondents.

Banks has done all the arrangements for this and the services will be rolled out in the next month. By 30th September, 2010 bank is likely to cover over 150 villages under the financial inclusion program.

According to RBI directives, any village with a population of over 2000 households has to be covered under financial inclusion.

Nayar emphasized that loan should be used for productive purpose also the repayment should be done timely as it will help in recycling the money which is a must for the growth of the economy and the nation. He said people should avail facility of free counseling available at the Financial Literacy and Credit Counseling cell known as Lead Bank opened at Mini Secretariat Bhatinda. The FLCC is providing counseling on responsible borrowing, banking terminologies and restructuring of irregular loans.