Two lakh diamond workers will have biometric saving accounts in Gujarat. The diamond workers one lakh in each, Ahmedabad and Surat, will be able to deposit or withdraw amount as small as Rs10 or above in the bank with the account.
The Union Bank of India has decided to open the accounts very soon. “These workers can probably be daily wager or may not be bank account holder. After getting money, they will be able to save it in the bank and if required they can also withdraw as small amount of money from their account,” said general manager of Union Bank of India, T.K. Sharma.
He also said that an official of the bank will daily visit, once or twice a day to their factory. “The diamond workers in Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad and in Surat, will not have to go to bank to deposit or withdraw cash. In Bapunagar area of Ahmedabad and in Surat there is several diamond cutting factories. Our official will daily visit these factory’s’ with the biometric machine to collect or disburse amount to the account holders,” said Sharma.
For opening biometric account, the workers will have to give finger prints of all 10 fingers of their hands. “For security purpose, we have design this facility in such a way that the machine will randomly ask for the print of any of the 10 fingers of the worker. And worker will have to press the same finger asked by machine to access the service, said Sharma.
As a part of financial inclusion, all the diamond workers will be able to access their savings account in the bank without visiting the banks. “We have already started the project in Mumbai where we have issued 25,000 biometric cards to hawkers. In this case, the hawkers will have to visit biometric ATM centres while in case of Ahmedabad and Surat, the accounts will not be card centric,” Sharma added.
(Source: sify.com)
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