Punjab Chief Minister Mr Parkash Singh Badal today launched 51 Rural Branches of HDFC bank across the state by inaugurating one its branch at village Badal through video conferencing at his official residence this evening. Disclosing this here today a spokesperson of the Chief Minister’s Office said that the Managing Director of the bank Mr Aditya Puri called on the Chief Minister this evening and informed him that HDFC was the second largest private sector bank, which had significant presence with over 400 branches in the state meaning thereby they had a branch at a distance of after every seven kilometer. He said that rural branches which are 3-4 member full-service branches located primarily in the rural areas, reflects HDFC Bank's commitment to push deeper into the rural areas and bring millions of Indians into the banking fold. He further said that it was a part of HDFC Bank’s Board approved mandate to bring 10 million unbanked families (40 million inpiduals) into the banking fold. Mr Puri said that the launch of these branches, largely in the rural areas, would further enhance the thrust to achieve the mission of financial inclusion across the length and breadth of the state. Interacting with the MD HDFC, Mr Badal asked him bank to provide soft loans to the peasants, dairy farmers and other allied farming sectors to bail out them in this hour of crisis when the profitability margins had already been squeezed due to the high costs of agricultural inputs and low returns in terms of stagnated MSP. He asked Mr Puri to devise some attractive loan schemes especially for the small and marginal farmers by giving attractive incentives to them for supplementing their incomes from other allied professions like Dairy, Fishery, Goattery, Piggery and Animal Husbandry. Apart from this the Chief Minister also asked the MD HDFC to set up a network of specialized agricultural branches across the state to ensure cheap loans to the farmers to buy farm equipments, quality seeds, pesticides and fertilizers with a thrust to adopt persification. He rued the cumbersome process involved in the sanctioning of loans to the farmers and asked Mr Puri to rationalize the process of advancing loans to them so that maximum beneficiaries could avail this facility.The Chief Minister asked Mr Puri to undertake the disbursement of pension under various social welfare schemes through Electronically Benefit Transfer Scheme under which cash benefits of these schemes would be disbursed to the beneficiaries directly in their bank accounts, so as to facilitate them and check the fraudulent practice. Responding to the above issue raised by the Chief Minister, Mr Puri informed him that the bank had already tied up with the Social Security department to adopt Fazilka district for the disbursement of financial assistance under various social welfare schemes to the beneficiaries through EBT System. He also revealed that the HDFC had recently worked out with Water Supply and Sanitation department to undertake the entire accounting of the various water supply schemes across the state. He said that plans were also on anvil to focus on the collection of Electricity and water bills, which were being viewed as the people friendly measures to save lot of time and energy. Prominent amongst other present on the occasion included Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Mr SK Sandhu, Principal Secretary Finance Mr Satish Chandra and Special Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister Mr Gurkirat Kirpal Singh besides senior functionaries of the HDFC bank.