Mission unaccomplished…

While government at the center is talking about the renovation of the cities through the JNNURM (Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission) or transparency in the banking transactions through introduction of KYC (Know Your Client), it is inactive enough to clear the obstacles which are keeping the government from achieving the ultimate objective of such schemes. Recently I witnessed two unique experiences which clearly underline the importance of studying how system works currently and then setting new rules for the game. To keep this reading short I will talk about second experience in another article.

Recently my parents permanently shifted to Pune from our native place (Latur in Maharashtra). We wanted to get his PAN done and we came to know that the SBI passbook serves as both proof of identity and residence, in one, while applying for PAN. Few other government offices also accept the SBI passbook as proof of identity and residence. Now here started the drama. We are staying in a rented house and the rent agreement is in my brother name. The bank officials in the concerned branch of SBI were initially reluctant to accept that document as proof of residence. Somehow they agreed to it but it took a lot of to and fro between different SBI counters. Finally the application was accepted and my father was told to come after 15 days (They say it’s a new rule) to collect the passbook. After 15 days, he was told that the account has been created and come after a week to collect the passbook (No rules here, it’s just the lazy attitude of the staff to procrastinate the work.). Having no other option he went after seven days and finally got the passbook. Story does not end here. Now this passbook somehow had our native address as present residential address. None of the SBI staff was aware of this and they didn’t even know how this all happened. The next strange thing that the bank officials did was that they wrote the current address with a pen (when this address is supposed to be printed) besides the printed one. On top of that the passbook didn’t have his photograph on it. The whole purpose of using this passbook as the proof of identity and proof of residence went for a toss. When my father went to the branch manager to find out what was going on, the manager (as any other government servant) was reluctant to look into the issue but later on asked someone to investigate. Ultimately we came to know that my father has an account in SBI in my native place and hence the system is not accepting our new address and to have the new address on the passbook my father needs to do one of two practically unfeasible things. Get the old account closed (which we cannot do as my father’s pension is credited to that account) or apply for the change of address in the old branch (in my native place). 

I still remember the “surprisingly SBI” campaign that SBI used to convey to the common people that SBI has “surprisingly” changed. Now I know why they said that SBI is “surprisingly” changed. It would really be a great surprise when SBI (and any government office for that matter) will really change to make the customer’s life more comfortable.

Another interesting thing to note here is how SBI is flouting the KYC (Know Your Client) norms set by RBI. KYC makes it compulsory for all the banks to get latest details of their customers registered. And SBI has a system in place which doesn’t accept the recent updates in the customer information and the funny thing is that the SBI officials don’t understand what is happening. Where is common a common man supposed to go from here? RBI is supposed to handle such complaints, but its busy managing inflations, dollar influx, credit growth and what not. Do we need something like BRAI (Banking regulatory authority of India) who will offload the tasks of handling customer complaints and auditing banks to confirm the compliance to the law, from the shoulders of RBI?