The government of India has set the target of setting up a bank branch in each of the 72000 villages of the country by 2012, informed Pranab Mukherjee, finance minister of the country.

He said so while inaugurating the 1,574th branch of the United bank of India at Miriti village in the Bolpur sub-division of Birbhum district.

"The target is tough to meet, but the bank authorities have taken the initiative to reach the goal," Mukherjee said.

He also made serious request to villagers to ensure timely repayment of loans taken. He highlighted the benefits of timely repayment saying that in case of timely repayment, they will have to pay only 5% interest while in normal case, the interest is 7%.

Speaking about the inflation issue, he said, "We have taken some measures like changing the REPO rate to check inflation. However, the prices of vegetables have gone up purely because of a gap between demand and supply."