Kathmandu, May 16:

Nepalis working in India can now remit funds to their families in Nepal using the National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT) system.

More than 44,000 branches of banks, which are participating in the NEFT system in India, are offering this remittance facility, states a press release issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Nepalis, staying in India can avail of this service as either as a walk-in-customer or as an account holder and can initiate the remittance to a beneficiary in Nepal upto Rs 50,000 Indian Currency (IC).

The scheme envisages concessional charges as it is aimed at poor migrant workers who desire to remit money to their kith and kin back home.

“The money would flow to a designated branch of State Bank of India (SBI) and would be sent to Nepal SBI, which in turn would disburse the remittance proceeds to the beneficiaries,” states the release.

The system has been developed by State Bank of India (SBI) in close coordination with the RBI as a follow up of the report of the committee on ‘Modalities of Workers’ Remittance between India and Nepal’ constituted by the RBI.

The committee was headed by Dr R B Barman, executive director of the Reserve Bank of India.

The one-way funds transfer mechanism between India and Nepal has also been operationalised from yesterday.

The system was inaugurated by the RBI executive director, Dr R B Barman in the presence of senior officials of RBI, Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), commercial banks in India and Nepal SBI bank Ltd.

RBI took the initiative as a part of its SAARC Finance activities.

The new system will be extremely helpful for the migrant workers.

Officially, around Rs 2.5 billion has been sent back home annually by the Nepalis workers, who have gone to India.