After long years of wait, the villages of East Godavari basin are expected to be touched by banking facilities soon. It has been decided that all 1016 panchayats in the region will be facilitated with banking amenities.

The financial inclusion guidelines of Reserve Bank of India has asked for banking facilities to reach all villages pan India having population of 2000 and above. But the drive in the EG basin villages was on a halt owing to dilemma in selection of the mode in which the service would be extended to these villages.

17 banks, 15 of which are public sector ones and the remaining in the private sector category have been assigned the task of getting these villages financially included.

The banks in this list include State Bank of India, State Bank of Hyderabad, Andhra Bank, Union Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Canara Bank, Indian Bank, Corporation Bank, BOB, BOI, BOM, Indian Overseas Bank, Chaitanya Godavari Grameena Bank and Vijaya Bank. The two private sector banks are ING- Vysya and South Indian Bank.

It is said that in the first phase of the project business correspondent model will be adopted by banks to increase penetration in these unbanked areas.