The largest lender of the country, State Bank of India has initiated a dynamic financial inclusion drive in Andhra Pradesh. The drive would cover 1,130 villages in the state and to carry forward the objective, the bank has set up centers in all 23 districts of the state, informed Mr Shiva Kumar, Deputy Managing Director of the bank.

Following the inauguration of an SME branch in Visakhapatnam on Saturday, he said that the bank will be making optimum use of all the available models to achieve the goal of financial inclusion in the state as well as the country.

"We cannot, of course, open so many branches, but we will use innovative methods such as bank on bike to reach the rural masses. The model envisages sending a person to the village on certain days to collect deposits, make payments and take loan application forms. He, or she, will be attached to the nearest branch and will cover three villages. The Andhra Pradesh Government has given us time till March, 2012, to complete the programme, but we will finish it six months ahead of schedule," he said.

He informed that the state had special importance for the bank owing to credit deposit ratio of 128% and that 100 more branches would be added here in this fiscal and another 100 in the upcoming one.

He added that the ATM count in the state would also see a rise by another 500.