Union Minister for communication & IT and Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad, has called for added thrust on financial inclusion in policy initiatives. Speaking at the inauguration of WSBI Postal Savings Banks Forum here today Mr Prasad underlined the importance of financial inclusion and stated that financial inclusion is emerging as the new paradigm of economic growth. Financial inclusion pays a major role in eradicating poverty. The main focus of financial inclusion in India is to promote sustainable development and generating employment in rural areas for the rural population. He further emphasized that financial inclusion of the excluded households of rural areas is being accorded high priority by the government.
Prasad informed the delegates that among all the organizations in the country which deliver financial services, the Department of Posts has the largest outreach in rural India, and more so, in backward and remote areas. Post Office Savings Bank is the oldest and the largest savings institution in the country. A large part of government schemes is being delivered through the Post Offices due to their ubiquitous reach in rural areas. Department of Posts has also taken up the responsibility to disburse the wages through Post Offices by opening savings bank accounts in the names of MGNREGA beneficiaries. The WSBI Postal Savings Banks Forum is an annual meeting in recognition of the identify of postal financial service institutions. This year’s Forum is being held in India, hosted jointly by the National Savings Organization (Ministry of Finance) and the Department of Posts.
Kavery Banerjee, Secretary, Department of Posts, in her key note address informed the gathering about the role played by DOP. She stated that the Department’s network of 155 thousand post offices significantly out-numbers the combined number of branches of all commercial banks taken together. The post office savings schemes hold a total of 312 million accounts, which is more than the number of accounts held by any commercial bank. More importantly, the social sector disbursements done through the post offices have succeeded in bringing a total of about 80 million previously unbanked inpiduals into the fold of formal financial institutions in the last five years. All these have led to a change in the perception about the Post Office among the public as also within in the organization. Consequently India Post is now perceived as a potential key facilitator of financial inclusion in the country, having a role in promoting the country’s socio-economic development. The theme of this year’s Postal Savings Banks Forum is “The rising force of postal banking in the retail banking market”.