Following recommendations of T M Bhasin Committee, appointed on behalf of West Bengal State Level Bankers' Committee, 938 un-banked gram panchayats in West Bengal have been identified for setting up branches.

According to a press release, Union Bank of India (UBI) has been granted licenses for opening 11 new branches in these un- banked gram panchayats.

On his recent visit to Kolkata, RBI's Governor D Subbarao had asked banks to focus on financial inclusion.

The regulator has asked top most banks to formulate a strategy by March 2010 to include all villages by 2011. It has also asked all foreign banks to get their respective board approvals for the same.

The central bank appears to be worried about banks' participation in terms of offering services to the poor and may introduce a system to evaluate performance of bank managers who work closely at the branch levels.

The governor had said, "We want each bank to draw up their own model, and are consulting the Indian banking association in this regard," he had said. Supporting his views, Pranab Mukherjee, Union finance minister also asked banks to increase credit flow to the unbanked areas. C Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, UBI, said that out of the decided 130 branches to be opened during 2009-10, 29 would be opened in West Bengal of which, 11 would be opened in unbanked Gram Panchayats.

The CMD said that the bank had already achieved 100 percent of the branches under CBS as on September 13, 2009. It is the first bank in the Eastern region to achieve this. As on March 2009, the total business of the bank stood at Rs 90,263 crore with 20.20 per cent annual growth.