Shimla : All villages with a population of 2000 and above in Himachal Pradesh will have banks by March 2012 , a top Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) official said here Friday .
“We have identified 48 villages without banks , each will have a bank branch by early next year ,†said R . Gurumurthy general manager RBI Shimla office .
“In the second phase 500 villages having 1000 population will be covered ,†he said .
“Even though the penetration of banks was much better than the national average which was 14,000 people per branch and 4,500 people per branch in Himachal, credit raising was a concern in the hill state ,†Gurumurthy told the Hill Post .
He said there was an RBI plan to spread bio-metric banking in Himachal through business correspondents(BC) by March next year .
“This high tech scheme will have the facility of mobile banking, besides BC’s will go to the doorstep of customers to collect money among other banking activities ,†he explained .
Gurumurthy said the RBI was receiving many complaints from individuals , trusts and other entities regarding fradulent communications by phone , email and snail mail.
These offers relate to fictitous offers , lottery offers , lottery prizes , remittance of cheap funds in foreign currency , overseas jobs and scholarships .
Such cases were on the rise across India and Himachal Pradesh . A lawyer from Rampur Bushahr had recently fallen into a trap of winning a lottery of Rs 7.8 crore and was asked to deposit Rs 38,000 online which he did and in the process lost his money .
The RBI has appealed to the public to be wary of such fraudulent offers and report such cases to the RBI and the police .
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.
