The chairman and managing director of Punjab National Bank, KR Kamath said that the bank was going to introduce the concept of branchless banking by setting up Kiosks in unbanked villages.

Kamath said that this project would be known as ‘Project Namaskar' and under this one lakh kiosks would be established in unbanked villages to extend the bank's reach and create large customer base. He pointed out that PNB Farmers welfare trust, founded in 2000 had been quite successful in development of rural population engaged in farming sector.

He further said that PNB had launched a pilot project in Sonebhadra district through its Robertsganj branch for facilitating wage payment under NREGA project. The Deputy Governor, RBI, Mr. KC Chakrabarty was present at the launch of this project on Monday.

The CMD said that under the project, the bank had opened accounts through banking correspondent and around one lakh smart cards had already been distributed among the NREGA beneficiaries.

Kamath said that the Varanasi circle of bank that includes 15 districts would see an improvement in banking services with the setting up of 19 new ATMs. To meet the bank's mission of banking for unbanked, PNB was ready to distribute over 500 rickshaws to rickshaw pullers in Mirzapur district. This was aimed at making the poor rickshaw pullers the owners of their own rickshaws, thus saving them from the clutches of moneylenders.

PNB is also keen to become an active player in the insurance market. The bank has adopted a referral model to distribute its products. Under this model PNB can only supply potential business ‘leads' for the insurance company-LIC in this case to pursue.