T M Bhasin: Banking

There are numerous examples of financial inclusion in the country. But there are few that have scaled and are replicable. Puducherry that stands apart as 100% financially included geography, is the result of vision and painstaking execution by T M Bhasin, Chairman & Managing Director, Indian Bank. He has steered the project to bring it to fruition. He has championed the cause of financial inclusion and set up Financial Literacy and Credit Counselling Centres (FLCCs) in 14 districts benefiting 6,253 persons of which nearly half are women with majority belonging to the backward caste. The Indian Bank Self Employment Training Institutes (INDSETIs) in 5 districts, in last one year, have trained nearly 2,000 persons in self-employment and disbursed credit upwards of 7.6 million rupees. More than 112,000 Self Help Groups have been credit linked disbursing over 16 billion rupees. The bank has extended OD and GCC facilities to 56,208 beneficiaries amounting to 129 million rupees. All the 1,511 villages with population above 2,000 have been provided banking facilities.