Budget 2016: India Post To Rollout 1000 ATMs By March-End

The Department of Posts (DoP) announced plans to open 1,000 ATMs by March this year and also bring all 25,000 departmental post offices under core banking system. Presenting at the Union Budget today, the government announced it will undertake a massive rollout of ATMs in post offices over the next three years by providing better access to financial services in rural areas. At present, DoP has 25,000 departmental post offices and 1,30,000 rural post offices across the country.

“To provide better access to financial services, especially in rural areas, we will undertake a massive nationwide rollout of ATMs and micro ATMs in post offices over the next three years,” Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said in his Budget speech for 2016-17.

The core banking system will enable customers to operate their accounts, and avail banking services from any post office on its network, regardless of where they maintain their account.

India Posts is the largest postal network in the world and provides access to affordable services to all citizens in the country through its vast network. Out of 1.55 lakh post offices, 1.39 lakh are in rural areas and the remaining 15,736 in urban areas. All the post offices in the country would be computerised by next year with an outlay of Rs 4,909 crore under the IT Modernization Project of the Department of Posts.

“At present, the project is at implementation stage and is likely to be completed by 2017,” according to a recent Economic Survey, which mentioned the project involves computerisation and networking of all post offices.

Besides, it envisages networking and computerisation of all mail offices, accounts offices and administrative offices in the country, including approximately 1,30,000 branch post offices in rural areas run by ‘gramin dak sevaks’. A total of 27,736 departmental post offices, including mail offices and administrative offices, have been networked and connected to a data centre, the survey said.

“It is the largest single organisation WAN (wide area network) in the country. A data centre has been established at Navi Mumbai and has been functioning since April 2013, while a disaster recovery centre has been operationalised in May 2015,” it said. 

Under the project, Core Banking Services have been rolled out in 16,461 post offices and ATMs have been installed in 430 locations. The DoP plays a crucial role in disbursing wages to Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) beneficiaries. Nearly 6.92 crore MGNREGS accounts have been opened in post offices up to December 2015, the survey said. “Towards financial inclusion, the number of post office savings bank (POSB) accounts has increased from 30.86 crore to 33.97 crore,” it said. 

More than 80 lakh Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana accounts have been opened since the launch of the scheme on January 22, 2015. Apart from this, more than 18.4 milliom kisan vikas patras have been sold, attracting an investment of more than Rs 16,429 crore since launch on November 2014, the survey said.

Source :  http://www.cxotoday.com/