India Post payments bank to employ over 3 lakh staff

New Delhi: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday asked the department of posts to hasten the process of setting up all 650 payments bank branches by September 2017.

“The minister (Prasad) today met Postal Services Board for India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) 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 familiar with the matter told PTI.

The cabinet on Wednesday cleared a 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 fiscal 2019.

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 official 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 the postal department to hire the managing director and chief executive of IPPB by August and set up a selection committee for hiring the chief financial officer by 15 June.

The minister has also advanced 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 from 15 June and finish the process by in next 3-4 months,” the official said.

The IPPB will be managed professionally and most of its A Grade employees will be hired from the market. The IPPB board will have representation from other government departments including the department of expenditure and department of economic services.

The government has approved a Rs.800 crore corpus for IPPB which will have Rs.400 crore equity and Rs.400 crore grant.