Berhampur: All the residents of a small village in Ganjam district operate their accounts of Indian Post Payment Bank (IPPB), a government-owned paperless bank, even though all of them are not technology savvy, an official said.
Palasi village under Hinjili block is credited as ‘saksham gram’ of the postal department as all its 155 households have IPPB accounts. Besides the households, shop keepers of the village have also IPPB accounts, while the total number of accounts in this bank in the village is 210, a senior official said.
“The villagers operate their accounts on their own, even though all of them are not technology savvy,” said a senior officer of Berhampur Postal Division.
It should be stated here that 753 villages in Odisha have been declared as the ‘saksham gram’ – the highest number in the country compared to other states, as each and every household of these villages have accounts in IPPB, said Chief Post Master General of Odisha circle, Santosh Kumar Kamila.
“A village is declared as saksham gram when all its households have at least one account in IPPB,” Kamila said adding Odisha postal circle received the national award in September for the achievement.
Postal Department had given a target of making of 66 villages ‘saksham gram’ last year, but we have achieved 753 – the highest in the country. Of these 73 villages are in Berhampur postal division, informed Kamila.
The IPPB was launched in the state from September 1 last year. Since then, 3,37,296 accounts have been opened by the end of September this year in this bank, while total transaction was around Rs 9.41-crore, sources said.
“The department has been given a target to make 3,000 more villages as ‘saksham gram’ in Odisha this year. We are trying to achieve the target this year also,” Kamila said.
IPPB has set up 33 branches, covering all the districts in Odisha. It has enabled over 7000 banking access points and equipped several doorstep banking service providers with micro-ATM devices (smartphone and biometric device) to provide a full suite of banking services, including cash deposits, withdrawal, account opening, money transfers, bill payments and DBT distribution at the customers doorstep, stated Kamila.
PNN & Agencies
