Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Apr 02, 2004
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Apr 02, 2004 |
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Money & Banking
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Public Sector Banks BoI in tech deal with BHEL — Rural automation to run on solar energy M. Ramesh
Chennai , April 1 BANK of India is negotiating with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd for the supply of solar panels, using which the bank intends to power its rural branches. The main problem in computerising the rural branches is the lack of electricity, observed Mr D. Krishnamurthy, General Manager-IT, Bank of India. Grid power is erratic and in some areas there is no power supply at all for hours at a stretch. An answer to the issue is the use of solar power - solar panels with photovoltaic cells plus some batteries to store the electricity. BHEL has developed three prototypes for Bank of India and the bank has to choose one of them and negotiate the price. Mr Krishnamurthy expects an agreement to be signed in about three months. Bank of India intends to equip some 250-300 rural branches with solar panels, to enable the branches to be computerised. Each could cost around Rs 5 lakh, paid back in about five years. Solar panels have been recently installed at two rural branches of the bank, Jayapura near Mysore and Bugate Alur near Belgaum. Once rural branches are computerised the next step is to network them. A cost-effective way of networking the far-flung rural branches is by using CDMA technology - the same as those used in Reliance and Tata mobile phones, where voice and data flow through telephone lines up to a point in a village and thereafter reaches the user through wireless. Bank of India has tried this successfully in a few branches, Mr Krishnamurthy said. The CDMA-based connectivity enables one branch to `dial into' another whenever needed. After the customer completes his transaction, which may be depositing or withdrawing money, the connectivity is cut off. But neither solar panels nor CDMA is cutting edge technology. Why are banks adopting them only now? Mr Krishnamurthy attributed this "awakening" to the growing competition and the consequent invasion of rural turfs by the private sector banks.
More Stories on : Public Sector Banks | Non-conventional Energy
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