The government has set the target of enveloping as many as 73000 villages under its financial inclusion drive by 2012. Along with this, it plans to add another 5 crore bank accounts in rural areas, informed finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee.

"We intend to cover at least 73,000 new habitations which have population of over 2,000 and we will open at least five crore new accounts by March 2012," Mukherjee said.

He indicated that rural penetration of banks was still low with only 38% of the total 85,300 bank branches were targetted to rural areas.

"Though the total number of bank branches have increased from 8,700 at the time of nationalisation in 1969 to 85,300 now, rural areas have only 32,000 branches," said Mukherjee, adding that the government had directed all public sector banks to increase their presence in rural areas.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi has recently initiated a financial inclusion campaign called, "Swabhimaan". "It is one of the first campaigns to make targeted and concerted efforts to ensure ease of access of organised financial system for the common people," Gandhi said.

"Though India has one of the largest banking networks in the world, it is a matter of great concern that only 40 percent of our people have access to banking services.

"This revolutionary campaign seeks to correct that imbalance by establishing a new medium to ensure greater availability of full spectrum of financial services and organised banking to all our citizens regardless of which part of the country they may reside," Gandhi added.