By IANS
Ranchi : Jharkhand has become one of the few states to offer banking facilities at post offices in rural areas in collaboration with the State Bank of India (SBI), officials said Wednesday.
"Under the new scheme, the Jharkhand postal department has entered into a collaboration with the SBI to extend SBI facilities in rural parts of the state," said Anil Kumar, the director of the department.
"The collaboration has taken place in light of a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directive to extend baking facilities to rural areas. SBI will be linked with post offices in rural areas and it will provide facilities like loans, depositing money and other things," Kumar added.
Jharkhand is one of the five states of the country where SBI facilities are provided in post offices. The others are Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pardesh and Karnataka.
In Jharkhand, 21 post offices located in rural areas of Bokaro, Dhanbad and Hazaribagh districts have been identified for providing SBI services. While, the banking service began July 2 in six post offices, the facility will be extended to the rest once they have been linked to the SBI.