After the rush of opening basic savings bank accounts under the mission-mode financial inclusion project, Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), banks are trying to make these accounts operational.

As of February, 2015, about 13.68 crore accounts were opened by public sector banks, regional rural banks and private sector banks. However, out of these, about 8.60 crore accounts have zero balance and the Indian Banks Association (IBA) is now working on making them operational.

In a recent circular to banks, it has been observed that “it is necessary to operationalise and make these accounts viable”, and suggested that Banking Correspondents (BCs) should be imparted the needed training to achieve this objective.

There are 2.5 lakh BCs providing banking services especially in the unbanked or under-banked areas of the country.

Road-map A road map has been drawn by IBA, banks, Nabard and the Indian Institute of Banking and Finance (IIBF) to build capacity among banking correspondents by making them familiar with banking products and financial services like micro insurance, micro pensions, etc to make them available to the target group.

As part of the road-map, it has been decided to train BCs in the task and the course content will be prepared by IIBF which will include PMJDY. IIBF is also ready to roll out a two-day training programme across State capitals and BCs will be certified after successful completion of the training.

They will also be familiarised with technology and basic knowledge of products. “The BCs, though well-versed with technologies like handling point of sales (PoS) devices, micro ATMs and biometric devices, were lacking in knowledge of basic banking products and services. Hence, they need to be imparted the desired training,” the circular said.

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