1.7 million in Himachal sign up for ADHAR cards

Shimla : Around 1.7 million people have enrolled for the ADHAR card programme or Unique Identification Authority of India (UID) in Himachal Pradesh.Out of this 700,000 cards have already been issued so far.

This was stated here by the state’s chief secretary Rajwant Sandhu Thursday at the state level bankers committee meeting.

She urged the banks to issue UID enabled smart cards as a prospective model so that financially excluded people are brought into the formal banking fold.

The chief secretary said banks have disbursed fresh credit of Rs 2074 crore to 97706 units under various activities in the statel,surpassing targets by 125 per cent.

“Bank deposits have gone up by 21 per cent over previous years reaching Rs 41853 crore.Advances have grown by 13 per cent reaching a level of over Rs 18492 crore,” Sandhu said.

Ajay Kumar,executive director UCO bank said a total network of 1500 bank branches were providing financial services to the people of the hill state.

Of these 1220 branches were located in rural areas as most the population lives in villages.

Baldev S Chauhan

In a 20 year career published widely. He has worked for the BBC, AFP, The Statesman, IANS and the Business Standard . Known for his hard hitting writing and occasional off-beat stories. He lives in Shimla.