Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has withdrawn its earlier decision of removing three private commercial banks from the list of banks empanelled for handling business and deposits of government organizations and departments.

The Finance Department today issued a notification in this regard.

The three private banks—HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank—will now continue as empanelled banks eligible to handle business and deposits of state government organisations, said the notification.

On June 21, these three private banks had been removed from the list of banks empanelled for handling business and deposits of Odisha government and its departments.

The Finance Department had removed the three banks from the list of empanelled banks for handling business and deposits of the state government and state government supported organisations including government departments, directorates, HoDs, establishments, agencies, PSUs, societies and universities.

The three private commercial banks had been de-empanelled due to continuous poor performance in some flagship government schemes and discouraging general banking parameters.

The Finance Department had asked all the departments of the state government to close their savings, current and other running accounts in the above said three private banks immediately and transfer the account balance to any other empanelled bank.

A few days ago, senior officials of the three banks met Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi in the capital city here and submitted written assurance to improve their performance under government schemes and priority sector lending.