45% of people in Gujarat do not have bank accounts

Surprising it may sound, but while 60% of the state’s population has mobile phones, a whopping 45% does not have bank accounts. To tap this segment of the population, banks in Gujarat have come up with a new scheme — the financial inclusion scheme.

In the next two years, all banks in the state will cover more than 3,500 villages, each with a population of more than 2,000. They will open various branches of their banks or provide banking services in the villages, revealed chairman and managing director of Dena Bank, DL Rawal, who was in the city on Tuesday. Dena Bank is the convener of the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC). 

Rawal, however, said that the situation in Gujarat is comparatively better than that of the country on the whole. “It is estimated that more than 55% of India’s population does not avail banking services. The situation is better in Gujarat, where, we believe, some 45% or less does not have bank accounts,” he said. 
The new scheme requires that there be at least one bank branch or bank correspondent in every village that has a population of over 2,000.     

“We aim to cover 3,500 such villages in Gujarat. Of these, Dena Bank will cover more than 500 villages,” Rawal said.     But it is not just the rural population that remains untapped. “People in the sub-urban region and even youths in urban areas do not avail banking services,” Rawal said, adding that Dena Bank’s main focus will be on attracting the youths in the country. “Youth account for a large segment of India’s population and it’s surprising that many still do not have bank accounts. So, we have decided to take our banking facilities to as many youths as we can,” he said.