95 per cent households in NE do not have access to banking

Later addressing a Press Conference, Gopinath informed that the RBI has proposed opening of a branchat Itanagar soon.

She attributed the reason for low accessibility tobanking services in the rural areas of the state, to poorinfrastructure and connectivity bottlenecks.

"Improper infrastructure besides availability ofland deters banks from setting up branches in remote areas",she pointed out.

The state government should acquire land from thelandowners and should give them to the banks on lease", sheadvocated adding, things will improve soon.

She also said that the RBI recently agreed to providethe capital expenditure for setting up new bank branches andalso agreed to bear the recurring expenses for five years tosuch branches for establishment.

SBI Chief General Manager (NE Circle) R K Garginformed that out of 66 branches of 17 commercial banksoperational in Arunachal, SBI alone has 44 brancheswith 42 ATMs.

"Average credit deposit ratio of all commercialbanks in the state is less than 30 per cent while, SBI''sCD ratio is 37.19 per cent", he said adding 28branches of SBI in the state will be provided with NoteSorting Machines to detect fake currencies.