Phone banking ruined the banks: PM Modi targets Cong in Odisha

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday inaugurated the Reserve Bank of India’s Data Centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute at Info Valley-II in Jatni, near Bhubaneswar, Odisha. Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister said the project would be immensely beneficial for the people of Odisha and the country. He congratulated everyone associated with the project. Modi said that development, for the government, means ensuring balanced growth across India by creating opportunities in villages and smaller towns. He emphasized the importance of improving connectivity in even the most remote areas, enabling poor families to live with dignity, and ensuring that no citizen is left behind in the country’s development journey.  The Prime Minister also said that India’s banking sector has become one of the most efficient in the world, with people now having access to banking services round the clock. Launching scathing attack at Congress, PM Modi said, under the Congress party's phone banking system, thousands of crores of rupees were made available to the wealthy at any time. This systemic failure left India's banking sector burdened with non-performing assets (NPAs) and pushed the banking system to the brink of ruin.

VIDEO | Bhubaneswar, Odisha: Addressing the inaugural event of Reserve Bank of India's newly established Data Centre and Cybersecurity Training Institute, PM Modi (@narendramodi) says, "Ordinary families, the poor and the middle class were kept deprived for decades, and our banking sector was a major example of this. Banks were nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s in the name of the poor. However, until 2014, more than half of the country's population remained outside the banking ecosystem. Products such as bank loans were a dream even for the middle class. The poor, small farmers and landless women could not even think about them. Today, digital banking in India has connected everyone to 24x7 banking services. But before 2014, there was a different era of phone banking. Thousands of crores of rupees in bank loans were granted over the phone to a select few in the Congress in Delhi and those who had connections with them. Poor and middle-class families needed a guarantor to open a bank account, but under the Congress' phone banking scheme, thousands of crores of rupees were available to the rich at any time. This mismanagement resulted in India's banking system being hit by non-performing assets (NPAs), bringing it to the brink of collapse." (Source: Narendra Modi YT) (Full video available on PTI Videos - https://t.co/bIyFWTfmBd)

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) October 25, 2026

Built at an estimated cost of around 170 crore rupees, the data centre is expected to strengthen the security of critical financial data and enhance the resilience of India’s digital financial infrastructure. It will support mission-critical systems, including payment and settlement operations of the Reserve Bank. The accompanying Cybersecurity Training Institute will provide specialised training and promote research in cybersecurity, enterprise computing and emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and quantum computing. The facility is expected to strengthen the RBI’s technological capabilities and contribute to the security, reliability and resilience of the country’s rapidly expanding digital financial ecosystem.