Public sector lender, Union Bank of India has plans to create a corpus of Rs 500 crore to aid farmers in Andhra Pradesh. The bank has also targetted the Surat-Ganjam (Orrisa) corridor and the migrant work force there. It plans to launch mobile based savings accounts there.

The bank has targetted 32,000 villages which it aims to cover in the coming three years. The bank has projected to add 6.2 million new customers in this time frame, thus increasing its customer base to 10 million.

The bank was also experimenting with providing finance to the members of Primary Agricultural Cooperative Societies (PACS) in Andhra Pradesh through Co-options Technologies Ltd (COTL).

It has already finished financing for two crop seasons. "In the next stage, we are extending this to 650 PACS covering around 1.25 lakh farmers with a loan corpus of Rs 500 crore", said Nair.

"Financial inclusion is not only restricted to rural areas, but the same is evident in urban areas too," he said.

Currently the bank is covering two money-moving corridors -- Mumbai-Eastern Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Bihar and Delhi-Eastern UP and Bihar corridor.

"We will shortly replicate this model in other money-moving corridors like Surat-Ganjam (Orrisa)," said Nair.