RBI transfers Rs33,010 crore surplus profit to government

The central board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), at its meeting today, approved the transfer of surplus profit of Rs33,010 crore for the year ended 30 June 2013 to the Government of India, more than double the amount of Rs16,010 crore paid for the year ended 30 June 2012.

The RBI board reviewed the current economic situation, global and domestic challenges and policy responses, as also the draft annual report (2012-13) on the working of the Reserve Bank of India.

The RBI board meets seven times in a year. Apart from meetings held at Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and New Delhi, the RBI board also holds meetings in other states by rotation.

Earlier, on 7 August, the RBI convened the meeting of a special state level bankers' committee. Senior officials of the state government led by the chief secretary of the Maharashtra government, chairmen and managing directors of leading public and private sector banks in Maharashtra and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development as also senior officials of the RBI attended the meeting.

The meeting discussed several issues such as meaningful financial inclusion, seeding of bank accounts with Aadhaar numbers to facilitate direct benefit transfer (DBT), training of banking correspondents, especially in districts identified for direct benefit transfer (DBT).

Concluding the discussion on financial inclusion, Governor D Subbarao observed that people generally found banking to be beyond their reach. Banks should, therefore, consciously endeavour to lower the barriers to make banking accessible to them, he said.

The board also sensitized state government officials about entities conducting unauthorised financial business with people falling prey to their promises of high returns and then the entities vanishing with hard earned monies. RBI also sought state government's support to trace such entities.