The Reserve Bank organised the BSR@50 Conference on October 28, 2022 to discuss the role of Basic Statistical Returns (BSR) system in supporting the expanse of the Indian banking system and financial inclusion policies during the last 50 years (1972-2022) and reflect on the way forward. The participants included officers of the Reserve Bank, representatives of major commercial banks, including their Chief Compliance Officers, and select ex-officials who contributed to the BSR system in the past.

In his keynote address on ‘Fifty Years of Indian Banking Through the Lens of Basic Statistical Returns’, Dr. Michael Debabrata Patra, Deputy Governor noted that the BSR system has endured the test of time as an exhaustive data collection system, which has continuously adapted and incorporated the structural changes in the economy and in the banking system.

A Commemorative Volume containing the history of the BSR and the bank branch statistics systems as well as research papers using BSR data, was released on the occasion. Two research papers based on BSR data, viz., (i) Regional Rural Banks: Evaluating Performance at Service Area Level; and (ii) The Drive of Indian Females in Financial Inclusion – A Snapshot, were also presented. Shri Suresh H. Saoji, formerly Director in the Department of Statistics and Information Management of the Reserve Bank, shared his reminiscence of the early years of designing and stabilising the regular reporting under the BSR system. The conference concluded with an address on ‘Information Management in RBI – The Way Forward’ by Dr. O. P. Mall, Executive Director.

(Yogesh Dayal)     
Chief General Manager

Press Release: 2022-2023/1115