1-May-2023: Union Finance Minister leads Indian delegation to attend the 56th Annual General Meeting of Board of Directors of Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Republic of Korea from May 2-5, 2023
Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman will lead the Indian delegation to attend the 56th Annual General Meeting of the Board of Governors of Asian Development Bank (ADB) along with Investor/ Bilateral and other associated meetings, in Incheon, the Republic of Korea, from May 2-5, 2023. The Indian delegation, comprising of officials from the Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance. Government of India, is scheduled to depart later today.
The Meetings will be attended by official delegations of ADB members, observers, non-governmental and civil society organisations, media, financial institutions and banks and other private sector companies.
The engagements of Union Finance Minister will consist of the following components:
- Interaction with Global Economists, Governors / Finance Ministers of the ADB member countries etc.
- Bilateral engagements with countries and international organisations.
- Interaction with global business leaders and investors in roundtables.
- Engagement with Community Diaspora.
31-Mar-2023: India Post Payments Bank launches WhatsApp Banking Services
India Post Payments Bank (IPPB), in collaboration with Airtel, announced the launch of WhatsApp Banking Services for IPPB customers in New Delhi today, enabling them to access banking services on their mobile phone.
The newly launched IPPB WhatsApp Banking channel will enable IPPB customers to seamlessly connect with the bank on WhatsApp and effortlessly avail a host of banking services, including doorstep service request, locating nearest Post Office and much more. In line with the ambition of the Government to bring digital and financial inclusion to citizens in their language, the Airtel – IPPB WhatsApp Banking solution is also working on to build multi-language support, enabling added convenience to customers, especially to those in the rural parts of the country to access banking services in their preferred language.
Airtel has been working with IPPB to deliver as many as 250 million messages per month to the bank’s customers many of whom are located in mofussil towns and tier 2,3 cities. The addition of the WhatsApp messaging will add to customer’s accessibility to connect with the bank on their fingertips, furthering Digital India mission of the Government, as part of which IPPB has been working tirelessly to deliver banking services in the rural pockets of the country.
Shri Gursharan Rai Bansal, CGM & CSMO – India Post Payments Bank said, “We are delighted to work with Bharti Airtel as our partner in driving digital and financial inclusion in India. We believe that financial services driven by technology have great potential and can go a long way in ensuring that the best financial products reach the farthest corners of the country.”
Shri Abhishek Biswal, Business Head - Airtel IQ said, “Airtel IQ is a robust, intuitive and secure cloud communication suite. With the addition of WhatsApp messaging to the existing SMS and voice communication that we offer to India Post Payments Bank customers, we will further enable a two-way communication between the bank and their customers. We are delighted to continue our association with IPPB to contribute significantly in making banking services more accessible to tier2,3 cities in the country. We promise to continue delivering customer centric solutions that offer greater convenience to customers.”
The IPPB and Airtel IQ are working towards further integrating a LIVE interactive customer support agent into the WhatsApp solution which will enable customers to access 24X7 support and get quick resolutions for their queries.
15-Mar-2023: Automation of Primary Agricultural Credit Societies
A Centrally sponsored project for Computerization of 63,000 Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS)/Large Area Multi-Purpose Societies (LAMPS)/Farmers Service Societies (FSS) across the country with a total financial outlay of Rs. 2,516 Crore, approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on 29th June, 2022, is under implementation.
At present, proposal for computerization of 54,752 PACS/LAMPS/FSS has been received from the States/UTs and central share amounting to Rs. 201.18 crore has been released for the procurement of hardware, digitization of legacy data and establishing support system. The Project Monitoring Units (PMUs) have been set up at Central and State Levels by NABARD. Development of software has been started by the National Level Project Software Vendor (NLPSV) selected by NABARD.
The project entails bringing all the functional PACS onto on ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) based common software, linking them with NABARD through State Cooperative Banks (StCBs) and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs), that will also help in maintaining check and balance on repayment of the loan disbursed.
The Ministry of Cooperation in consultation with States/UTs & other stakeholders concerned, has prepared Model Bye-laws for PACS to diversify their activities to become Multipurpose Cooperative Societies. Model byelaws have been circulated to all the States/UTs on 05.01.2023 for their adoption by PACS subject to their respective State Cooperative Societies Acts. The Model Bye-laws would enable PACS to carry out more than 25 business activities such as dairy, fisheries, food grain storage, LPG/CNG/Petrol/Diesel distributorship, common service centers, Fair Price Shops (FPS), community irrigation, Business Correspondent activities, etc. The common national software would support all the activities mentioned in the model byelaws including the provision of inputs like fertilizer, seeds, etc. by PACS.
However, waiving of agricultural loans does not come under the purview of Ministry of Cooperation.