The Chairman of State Level Bankers Committee SLBC in Karnataka, Basant Seth asked banks to issue two lakh Smart Cards to rural households before the end of February 2010. Smart Card enables beneficiaries of Social Security Pensions and wage earners under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Generation Scheme to withdraw their payments from their bank account. This avoids middlemen and misuse of funds. Speaking at the 111th SLBC meeting in Bangalore on Monday, he informed that a pilot project on Smart Card based payment system is taken up in Bellary, Chitradurga and Gulbarga districts. RBI Regional Director B Srinivas however pointed out that against the target of 10 lakh 28 thousand and 916, the smart card has been issued to only 66,000 people in the state. SLBC Chairman Basanth Seth informed that Lead District Managers have been instructed to constitute a sub-committee of the District Consultative Committee to draw up a roadmap to provide Banking services in every village having a population of over 2000. This has to be achieved by March 2011, through appointing a Business correspondents or a Business facilitator, he said. Basant Seth further said that the aggregate deposits of scheduled Commercial Banks registered a growth of 21.10% as on September last year. The outstanding level of credit to priority sector was Rs.68,712 crore, surpassing the RBI stipulation by 4.69 %. The agricultural advances during the same period was Rs.31,138 crores, forming 20.25% of total bank credit. He pointed out that even after increase in Cash Reserve Ratio of 75 basis points by RBI, there is adequate liquidity available in the Banking sector, which can be deployed for productive purposes.<br/>