Only 40,000 Indian villages have bank branches

India has 600,000 villages.

Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty of the Reserve Bank of India said “. . . everybody must have a bank account, in fact many of the programs of the government of India speaks about all benefits and facilities to be available for general public with the help of a bank account.

For this to happen banks penetration is very important." He noted that banks are the institutions of social and financial revolution, and they can create many new things by involving people in the society.

“Banks are important financial intermediary, but our problem is that banks access is not there, today out of 600,000 villages only 40,000 villages have bank branch . . . banks penetration is very important,” he said. He pointed out that people go to banks either to save or borrow money, and to transfer money. All three things can be done very efficiently by the banks and all three functions are very important, Chakrabarty noted.