Jammu: Meeting of Steering Sub Committee of J&K SLBC, 10th in series, to monitor IT enabled Financial inclusion, FLCCs and Credit Plus activities was held here Wednesday. The meeting was chaired by Ashok Kumar Mattu, General Manager and Officer-in-Charge, RBI, Jammu and was also attended by Sunil Gupta, President, J &K SLBC, A. K. Pandey, Zonal Head, SBI, S.K.Rana, Zonal Head, PNB and from Government of J&K by Shiv Kumar Gupta, Additional Commissioner, Finance Department, Dr. Bharat Bushan, Director Social Welfare, Jammu; Champa Devi, Joint Secretary, Rural Development Department. The other important participants included the Chairmen of both the RRBs functioning in the state of J&K, representatives from ICICI, HDFC, Canara Bank, UCO bank and Central Bank etc.
While extending a formal welcome, Mattu highlighted the role of banks and Government departments facilitating and in ensuring availability of adequate banking facilities and services to the rural and unbanked areas of the State. He stated that the ambitious plans of the Government to ensure delivery of various benefits to the intended beneficiaries through their respective bank accounts could only fructify when banks were able to open the CBS enabled banking outlets in these unbanked areas. He stressed the need for invigorating the efforts of the RSETIs in imparting required skills to the youth to make them employable thereby denting the unemployment and contributing in the overall economic growth of the State. He urged the banks to harness the available technology in reaching out to the masses and ensure credit plus activities were made available to the needy people at the earliest.
The meeting reviewed the progress achieved in the opening of branches/ CBS enabled banking outlets by the banks in the unbanked rural Centres allocated to the individual banks. The meeting also reviewed the position of awareness initiatives by the banks and FLCs, status of allotment of land to RSETIs by the State Government, performance of RSETIs, funding support to banks from ‘Financial Inclusion Fund’ of NABARD, Implementation of EBT/DBT schemes in J&K State, progress in issuance of Aadhar Cards and seeding them Cards and mobile numbers to the respective bank accounts, progress under PMJDY and functioning of Business Correspondents etc. The banks with deficit performance were advised to ensure to remedy the deficiencies wherever required and stick to the definite time frame which was finalized during the course of the meeting.
Shri Sunil Gupta, President, J&K Bank clarified that the banks including J&K Bank, were ready to implement social security schemes of the Government under DBT and were awaiting the necessary inputs/data etc. from the departments concerned including Social welfare department of the Government of Jammu and Kashmir.
