India Post bank to push financial inclusion, boost rural economy: Ravi Shankar Prasad
Kolkata, Sep 1 : Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Saturday said the operations of the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) will strengthen the financial inclusion programme in India and make country's "village systems" stronger.
The Department of Posts is rolling out 650 branches and 3,250 access points of IPPB across India from Saturday and it aims to provide banking services to every citizen of India by leveraging the network of 1.55 lakh post offices of the department.
Of this, 27 branches and 135 access points were inaugurated in West Bengal circles comprising Sikkim, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and West Bengal.
"Remaining 8,942 post offices in the circle will function as access points gradually in a phased manner by end of December 2018," a statement said.
"IPPB is a revolutionary step in the field of financial inclusion. When the IPPB starts operations, the villages will become good unit and the payments bank will become a strength to make village system stronger," said the Union Minister of Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology.
The IPPB, which has been set up as a public sector bank with 100 per cent equity under the postal department, has a vast network of the India Post with a rural penetration of 1.3 lakh access points (post offices), nearly 2.5 times the number of bank branches in rural India.
"When the IPPB starts operation, the revenue, accountability and credibility of postal department will skyrocket," he said at the inauguration of IPPB Kolkata branch here.
Elaborating on the digital profile of the country, Prasad said there are 120 crore mobile phones and 45 crore smart phones available in the country, while 122 crore people have Aadhaar card.
Explaining the growing transactions through digital mode, he said the transactions value through BHIM-UPI have gone up to Rs 45,845 crore as of July 2018 from Rs 5,325 crore in September 2017.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
