Kerala has been declared total banking State. All households in Kerala have been brought under banking net, Pawan Kumar Bansal, Union minister of state for finance, said in a function, here, on Monday.
After survey, focussed campaign fell on those households outside the banking net. These were provided no-frills accounts, but with zero-balance facility.
The banks had targetted the fully banking State status for Kerala as early as June, 2007. But the outbreak of viral fever in some pockets in mid-2007 had set brakes on the survey operations.
A report of the State Level Bankers’ Committee noted that the NRI deposit-base in the expats-rich Kerala was crumbling, showing a fall of about Rs 712 crore in the Y2Y. In September 2006, NRI deposits were to the tune of Rs 32,450 crore. By September 2007, NRI deposits fell to Rs 31,690 crore. At the same time, in an unprecedented rate of growth, domestic deposits had more than doubled to about Rs 75,000 crore.