Thaindian News

Kolkata, July 3 (IANS) Not all is well with the Regional Rural Banks in West Bengal that are plagued by inadequate staff, lack of required technical upgradation and the authorities’ refusal to let them open branches in urban areas, experts maintain.

The three regional rural banks (RRBs) in the state — Bangiya Gramin Vikash Bank, Paschim Banga Gramin Bank and Uttar Banga Khetriya Gramin Bank — are losing business, leading to a widening of the gulf with the commercial banks.

“The level of recruitment is low, leading to inadequate staff strength. There is only one teller counter in bank branches,” said Dilip Kumar Mukherjee, national general secretary of the All India Regional Rural Bank Employees Association.

“There is a need to increase the number of counters, but staff shortage is a big hurdle,” Mukherjee told IANS, adding 25-30 percent of total branches of rural banks in the state were yet to embrace the core banking solutions.

Frustration has crept in as promotional avenues have shrunk during the last 25 to 30 years, Mukherjee said. There was also a huge difference in the pension drawn by retired employees of RRBs and commercial banks.

Paschim Banga Gramin Bank Employees Congress general secretary Prasanta Mazumdar said: “We have a low level of infrastructure in our branches. Our bank has no ATM facility. We cannot issue all-India drafts. Now when it is the age of tele-banking and e-banking, we are lagging far behind commercial banks.

“We have 216 branches across the state, but we haven’t been permitted to open branches in Kolkata,” he said.

Bangiya Gramin Vikash Bank Employees Congress general secretary Sabyasachi Chakravorty said the bank was losing profitability as it had not got permission to open branches in urban areas.

“While commercial banks are using modern tools of applications, RRBs lack technical upgradation,” he said.

Saying that the bank was facing acute shortage of manpower as many staff members had retired from 2009 onwards with virtually no recruitment done to fill up the vacancies.

Paschim Banga Gramin Bank chairman Sabyasachi Das said currently 60 percent of the bank branches were under the Core Banking System (CBS) and the remaining branches would come under the system within one to two months.

“We will be able to issue ATM cards to our customers after all our branches come under the CBS system,” he stated.

Accepting that his bank has dearth of staff, the chairman said recruitment has not taken place for a long time.

However, there is one good news for the RRBs.

A recent state government circular had directed teachers to open salary accounts in nationalised banks to help salary disbursement on the first day of every month. This had led to fears among the RRBs that they would incur huge business losses if the government implemented the circular.

But two days back the government issued a fresh order saying it was considering including the regional rural banks and central cooperative banks for disbursement of salary and wages. However, there is a rider that the RRBs would have to ensure e-payment.

Das said following the new notification his bank would be able to save at least Rs.100 crore worth of business.

“We also disburse house building loans and loans under a special scheme ‘Shikkhak Samman’. We could have lost these businesses also had the teaching community moved the salary accounts to other banks,” he said.

“We are trying to bring all branches under the CBS system soon. We hope to disburse salary to the teachers on the first day of the month,” Das told IANS.

(Mithun Dasgupta can be contacted at mithun.d@ians.in)