The Regional Office of Reserve Bank of India at Kanpur is one of the oldest RBI Offices in the country and it started functioning from April 01, 1935 from the Old Building of the Controller of Currency, which was constructed prior to 1906. Although the Office had started functioning with the creation of RBI, it’s legacy dates back to the period when Kanpur Office was one of the seven Currency Offices in pre-independence India, viz. Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, Rangoon, Karachi, Lahore, and Cawnpore (Kanpur), which later became part of Issue Office of RBI.

Starting with Issue and Cash Department, new work areas were gradually assigned to the Office. Foreign Exchange Department (FED) started functioning in Kanpur Office with effect from August 01, 1942, Public Accounts Department (PAD) from April 01, 1966, Public Debt Office (PDO) from June 20, 1966, Rajbhasha from July 1978, Banking Ombudsman Office from May 24, 1996 and Department of Non-Banking Supervision (DNBS) from January 01, 2001.

RBI functions and operations in Kanpur Regional Office, is carried out from two buildings, viz., Main Office Building and Additional Office Building. Main Office Building, houses all the Departments such as Issue Department, Integrated Banking Department (IBD), Human Resource Management Department, Department of Supervision (DOS), Foreign Exchange Department (FED), etc. Additional Office Building houses the Office of RBI Ombudsman. Kanpur Office has one of the largest Issue Office in the country catering to 185 Currency Chests (146 in Uttar Pradesh and 39 in Uttarakhand) while Integrated Banking Department oversees the banking operations of the Government of UP. DOS supervises the functioning of NBFCs in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and FED supervises the functioning of 53 FFMCs and 2 AD Category - 2 entities in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the most populous state of India (accounting for 16.4% of the population) and the fourth largest state covering 9% of the geographical area of the country. The state is administratively sub-divided into 18 divisions and 75 districts. Kanpur is one of the prime centres of commercial and industrial activities in the country and was once also known as Manchester of India, it was founded by Raja Kanh Deo in 1207 and it was known as Kanhpur, which later came to be known as Kanpur. There are 17,90,008 industrial units in Uttar Pradesh which constitutes 9.3% of the total industrial units in the country, out of which 89,949 industrial units are present in Kanpur district, which comprises 5% of the total industrial units in the state (as on Sept 14, 2023)¹. Kanpur City also contributes over 20% of the total leather and leather goods export from India. The state is the largest producer of food grains particularly wheat, sugarcane, pulses and potatoes. Other industries like, tourism, computer hardware and software and handicrafts are major contributors to the state’s economy. The state had a total of 18,895 bank branches as of June 2023 which constituted 11.5% of the total bank branch network in the country.

Jurisdiction

Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand (Issue Dept. & IBD)

Head of the office
Dr. Ishan Shukla, Regional Director

¹ Source : Ministry of Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises website