DHAKA, Oct 9: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Wednesday announced that a “palli sanchay bank” would be established in the country to ensure welfare and change the lot of rural people.
“We would set up a ‘palli sanchay bank’ (rural savings bank) for poor rural people so that they could change their fate by utilizing their small savings,” she said. She, however, said: “We’ll have to convince the Banking Division of the Ministry of Finance to establish this bank.” 
Sheikh Hasina said the “One House One Farm Project” has been showing a new path in poverty alleviation, and in the same way palli sanchay bank will be set up for rural people so that none can play ducks and drakes with the fate of this bank.
The Prime Minister was addressing a function marking the inauguration of Digital Banking for the rural poor people and award distribution at national level of the “One House One Farm” project at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) here.
Sheikh Hasina said that the poor people of the country earlier could not stand on their own feet after receiving microcredit from different microfinance institutions due to higher interests.  “What we’ve seen earlier that a poor people took microcredit from an institution, but he or she couldn’t repay the interests ... they again had to borrow from another organization. As a result, they got burdened with credit and interest,” she added.
The Prime Minister said her government wants to free the country from this situation. “We are talking about small savings not microcredit so the rural people can stand on their own feet,” she said. 
Mentioning that the aim of the present government is to cut poverty further, the Premier directed the authorities of the “One House One Farm Project” to implement the project properly giving due importance not vying for becoming rich overnight and thus pushing it to the verge of extinction. “You’ll have to execute the project more carefully.”
The Rural Development and Cooperatives Division arranged the function at the BICC.
LGRD and Cooperatives Minister Syed Ashraful Islam and State Minister for LGRD and Cooperatives Jahangir Kabir Nanak also spoke on the occasion.
With Acting Secretary of Rural Development and Cooperatives Division MA Kader Sarkar in the chair, the function was also addressed by project director of the “One House One Farm Project”, Dr Proshanto Kumar Roy.
On behalf of beneficiaries of the project, Konika Mistri of Khulna and Abdul Gani Madbar of Shariatpur spoke on the occasion. 
The Prime Minister said that over nine lakh families in the rural areas have already been brought under online banking, while Tk 170 crore was transacted online. “We hope that we would be able to introduce online banking system in all 485 upazilas of 64 districts in the country by December next,” she said.
The Prime Minister said many people are becoming penniless while repaying the loans they borrowed from NGOs. “We want to free the rural people from this exploitation,” she said.