Third largest private sector lender of the country, Axis Bank has aimed at including 5,500 villages under banking facilities till March 2010 and take the number up to 12,000 in the next five years.

Financial inclusion is the need of the hour and all banks have noted it in their list of priorities.

Axis Bank has started with its move towards financial inclusion in villages near Nashik (in Maharashtra) and Darjeeling (in West Bengal). The bank also plans financial inclusion in metro cities liek Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore.

The bank, in its plan towards reaching out to the unbanked areas and the underprivileged sections plans to open as many as 18 lakh no frill accounts, Rs 40 crore of deposits and Rs 10 crore of advances.

SK Chakrabarti, executive director - retail banking, SME and agri, said: "The way we are looking at financial inclusion is that we have been in the banking sector for 15 years and the time has come for us to give back to the society."

"We are looking at opening 30,000 new accounts, wherein we would be giving debit card to the customer and overdraft," pointed out SK Mitra, president - agri and rural banking.

"The bank is also looking at providing banking service to the migrant workers located in the Delhi-Muzaffarpur area," added Nilanjan Majumdar, V-P of the financial inclusion team.