New Delhi: Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has asked Department of Posts to hasten process of setting up all 650 payments bank branches by September 2017.

“Minister (Prasad) today met Postal Services Board for India Post Payments Bank and asked them to expedite the process of setting up this entity by September 2017 as desired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. There will be about 3.5 lakh employees who are being trained in phases,” an official source told PTI.

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday cleared proposal to set up India Post Payments Bank with a corpus of Rs 800 crore and has plans to have 650 branches operational by September 2017. It will be expanded further scaled up to cover the entire country by the end of financial year 2018-19. Earlier, the Department of Posts (DoP) had to set-up 650 IPPB branches in three years. With advancement of target, DoP will set up 50 branches by March, 125 by April, 200 in May, 300 in June, 400 in July, 525 in August and 650 by September. “The Minister (Prasad) will hold review meetings every fortnight,” the source said. Initially most of the 3.5 lakh workforce will be posted on deputation who will be gradually replaced by fresh recruits. Prasad has asked postal department to hire MD and CEO of the IPPB by August and set up selection committee for hiring Chief Financial Officer by June 15. The minister has also advance dates for giving handheld devices to 1.3 lakh grameen dak sevaks. “He has asked the Department of Posts to start rolling out handheld devices in from June 15 and finish the process by in next 3-4 months,” the source said. The IPPB will be managed professionally and most of its A grade employees will be hired from market. The IPPB board will have representation from various other government departments including the Department of Posts, Department of Expenditure, Department of Economic Services etc. Government has approved Rs 800 crore corpus for IPPB which will have Rs 400 crore equity and Rs 400 crore grant. — PTI