Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today stressed the need for extending banking services to the rural people of the country for achieving higher level of GDP growth.<br/><br/> Addressing a press conference in Chandigarh he said that only about 40 percent of the country's population has bank accounts. He said that all habitations of more than 2000 population in the country will be provided banking facilities and besides this mobile banking facilities will also be provided to the people. <br/><br/>Finance Minister said that by bringing more people in banking inclusion the dependence of farmers on commission agents would reduce. Mr. Mukherjee said that RBI is regularly monitoring the interest rate charged by the banks from farmers and more and more Kissan credit cards are being issued to the farmers. He said that influence on inflation after increase in the fuel prices would be less than one percent.<br/><br/>Earlier addressing a meeting with the Chief Ministers of the North Zone States and the Union Territory of Chandigarh and Chief Executive Officers of Public Sector Banks and Financial Institutions at Chandigarh, Union Finance Minister advised the banks to provide maximum credit to agriculture and priority sector .He urged the participating states to implement central sponsored schemes . Minister said that the implementation of Aam Aadmi Bima Yojna and Co-Contributory pension Scheme ‘Swavalamban are important priorities before the government. He said that Punjab and Uttrakhand have not yet made the required amendments to the State Cooperative Societies Acts and requested them to take up this task.<br/><br/>In today’s meeting Chief Ministers of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh,Uttrakhand, participated while Finance Minister of Punjab ,Jammu and Kashmir and Delhi, Health Minister of U.P. and representative of UT. Chandigarh participated in this meeting . This was the third meeting of this type. Earlier such meetings were held at Patna and Bombay.