New Delhi, Aug 8: Minister of State for Communications Manoj Sinha on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) on August 21 to provide financial services to people in underserved areas.
"The Department of Posts reaches every nook and corner of the country including rural and remote areas. With the upcoming nation-wide launch of IPPB, the trusted postman will now become a banker to millions of unbanked and under-banked Indians who have so far had no access to financial services," Sinha told reporters here.
It will leverage the vast network of the Department of Posts (DoP), which has more than three lakh employees and 1.55 lakh post offices, to turn into access points for the new payments banks. Its reach will be further strengthened by grameen dak sevaks.
"Of the 1.55 lakh post offices, 1.30 lakh are in rural areas and with the transformation of all post offices into payments banks by December, the number of bank branches in rural areas would more than double from 49,000 to 1.30 lakh," the Minister said.
The postal bank will offer savings and current accounts, money transfer, direct benefit transfers, bill and utility payments, and enterprise and merchant payments.
The Postal Department already has 37 crore accounts across the country including 17 crore postal savings bank accounts. These accounts would be linked with the IPPB and all services provided by IPPB would be available to existing DoP customers.
The IPPB accounts, which will give four per cent interest rate, will not hold savings of more than Rs one lakh. Any money above that limit would automatically be transferred to the old post office accounts with which the IPPB accounts will be linked.
"IPPB will also offer services including credit, insurance and mutual funds by leveraging its tie-ups with third parties like Bajaj Allianz for life insurance and Punjab National Bank for loans," DoP Secretary A.N. Nanda informed.
The products and services will be offered across multiple channels -- counter services, micro-ATM, mobile banking app, SMS and IVR. On the day of launch, IPPB will have 650 branches at district level and 3,250 access points across the country, Nanda said.
India Post MD and CEO Suresh Sethi said that the aim is financial inclusion and the key objective is financial literacy with prime focus on ease of banking.
"We are bringing the simplest form of banking which will be paperless. A QR card will be given to the villagers which along with biometric verification will enable them for all the financial services. The doorstep services will come at a nominal cost," Sethi said.
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New Delhi, Jan 15: The CBI has registered a fresh case in connection with alleged impersonation by four NEET-UG, 2024 candidates in Bihar's Purnea, officials said on Wednesday.
The central probe agency took over the case from Bihar Police on a request from the state government.
The principal of SRDAV public school, one of the centres for the prestigious medical entrance examination held on May 5 last year, has alleged that the candidates' biometrics showed four impersonators were taking the exam rather than genuine candidates, according to an FIR registered in the matter.
According to the FIR, one Nitish Kumar of Bhojpur appeared for Ashish Kumar of Mujaffarpur, Kamlesh Kumar of Jalore (Rajasthan) appeared for Dheeraj Prakash of Siwan, Saurabh Kumar of Begusarai appeared for Tathaghat Kumar of Sitamarhi and Mayank Chaudhary of Sitamarhi appeared for Deepak Kumar Singh of Muzaffarpur.
The CBI has booked all eight for alleged impersonation, cheating and forgery among others.
The National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG) is conducted by the National Testing Agency (NTA) for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other medical courses in government and private institutions.
The exam was conducted on May 5, 2024 at 4,750 centres in 571 cities, including 14 abroad. More than 23 lakh candidates appeared for the test.
The Bihar Police launched a crackdown after getting inputs of an alleged leak of the paper and it soon snowballed into a major political issue.
The Union education ministry handed over the probe to the CBI, which had registered several FIRs in the case, taking over probes from different states including Bihar.
The agency had registered first FIR into the case on June 23 last year.