The Hindu Business Line : Reaching rural areas through technology

Mill worker Kailasam no longer visits his bank for small transactions, thanks to an ATM at Aruppukottai, Virudhunagar district. He draws money for household expenses from here. Curious about this "AC room", he ended up discovering it was an ATM. With his son's help, he withdrew the first Rs 100 through the automated teller machine.There are more people like Kailasam all over rural India and their numbers are growing.

Both private and public sector banks have planned to open at least 20 rural branches and ATMs each this year. Most of these will be computerised with core banking solution. Given the constraints of uninterrupted power and shortage of phone lines in rural areas, banks are devising ways of reaching rural areas through technology.

Solar-powered branches

Vijaya Bank plans to operate branches powered by solar cells, wherever feasible. To prevent network problems and delays due to traffic, the bank will use VSATs (very small aperture terminals) for communication, says Mr T. Valliappan, Executive Director, Vijaya Bank.

State Bank of India (SBI) plans to open ATMs in areas where there are no branches and power cuts do not extend beyond four hours at a stretch. It plans to use UPS back up and leased line connectivity from BSNL. ICICI Bank is looking at powering standalone ATMs by rechargeable batteries and will use phone lines for communication. The bank is working with IIT Madras to provide low cost rural ATMs, said an ICICI communique to Business Line.

Rural-specific ATMs

The ATMs, however, will not have all facilities that an urban ATM has. There are other exclusive options such as biometric identification (using finger prints instead of PIN number) for access and acceptance of old currency.

ATMs are enabled to accept farmer specific credit cards (kisan credit card) for cash withdrawal.

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