Chennai:
Chennai became the first city in the country to have Post
Office Savings Bank ATM on Wednesday as postal department unveiled plans to install
1000 ATMs in the country by the end of 2014.
Speaking after inaugurating the ATM at Thyagarayanagar
Head Post Office here, Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram said that four more
ATMs are ready for operation in Mumbai and Delhi. He said the Chennai ATM will
run on trial basis for six months before becoming interoperable.
Chidambaram said that 1.55 lakh post offices of India
Post are being modernised with an investment of Rs 4,900 crore to bring all the
post offices under the core banking solutions besides setting up ATMs.
Interestingly, as on date 60 post offices with more than
64 lakh accounts worth Rs 11,840 crore have moved to core banking solutions. In Tamil Nadu, 17 head post offices and four
sub-post offices have migrated to CBS.
Postal department secretary Padmini Gopinath said 1,000 post
office savings bank ATMs in India will be installed in 2014 and another 1800
ATMs will be added by 2015.
Padmini also said the postal department has an advantage
over bank when compared to its reach in India’s nook and corner “We have a
network of 1.5 lakh locations across India while banks have only 50,000
branches,” she said.
She also said that 26,840 post offices are planned to be
operational in core banking solutions by June 2015. She said by March 31, 2014,
postal department in coordination with ministry of rural development, it is
proposed to extend disbursal of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment
Generation Scheme wages through core banking facility in rural areas.
She also ruled out regularization of gramin dak sevaks as
demanded by Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers
stating that they put only three to four hours of work. “They will be paid
according to the amount of business they generate,” she added.
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