Photographs: Reuters.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Thursday proposed setting up an all-women bank, which will become operational by November this year.
"This bank will be a reality by the end of October and I want to cross an invite to Ms Sushma Swaraj and Mr L K Advani (senior BJP leaders) and all others for inauguration in November," Chidambaram said in his post Budget interaction with media.
"I...propose to set up India's first women bank as a public sector bank. I shall provide Rs 1,000 crore as initial capital," he said.
The proposed bank will lend mostly to women and women run businesses, support women SHGs (self help groups) and women's livelihood, he said.
Men can deposit in the bank but the bank will lend mostly to women. It will pre-dominantly employ women. Some men can also be employed, he added.
"We think women get a raw deal from many of our institutions, including public sector banks. Any number of people have told me clearly there is a bias to lend to men rather to women," he said.
"Therefore we believe that -- a public sector bank for women would be a good institutions that will address issues that is usually ignored by banks," he added.
Meanwhile, Reserve Bank Deputy Governor Anand Sinha said the proposed All-Women bank may not take much time to come up as this would fall under the ambit of the already existing public sector bank guidelines.
"If you see the Budget speech, this is to be set up as a public sector bank, therefore, there is no need for separate guidelines and it is not being covered under new bank guidelines," he said in Mumbai.
Sinha handles the banking operations and development department at RBI.
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