New Delhi : Never had enough money till I became an MLA for an operational bank account, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Saturday during his speech at the launch of India Post Payments Bank in New Delhi.

PM Modi said he had one account with Dena Bank during his school days when the bank opened for students a piggy bank account. His account remained empty, however, he added.

The prime minister added that the bank officials tried locating him for 32 years to close the account after he had left the village.

"After 32 years, they got to know I was at a particular place so the bank officials came there and said please sign, we need to close your account," PM Modi said adding that after he became MLA in Gujarat and started drawing a salary, he had to open an account. "Before that, there was no (operational) account," he said.

PM Modi on September 1 launched IPPB that will have 650 branches and 3250 access points across the country.

IPPB, the payments bank of Indian postal department that will take banking to doorstep of every citizen through an unmatched network of post offices and almost 3 lakh postmen and 'Grameen Dak Sewaks'.

"IPPB has been envisioned as an accessible, affordable and trusted bank for the common man, to help speedily achieve the financial inclusion objectives of the Central government. It will leverage the vast network of the department of posts, which covers every corner of the country with more than 300,000 postmen and Grameen Dak Sewaks. IPPB will hence significantly augment the reach of the banking sector in India," said a government statement.

"The IPPB will offer a range of products such as savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments. These products, and related services, will be offered across multiple channels (counter services, micro-ATM, mobile banking app, SMS and IVR), using the bank's state-of-the-art technology platform," the statement added.

courtesy : indiatoday.in

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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.