The banking consumers in State are barely aware about the system of banking ombudsman. So dismally that out of around 2700 complaints received by the banking ombudsman office for Bihar and Jharkhand only around 700 were from Jharkhand last year.
In order to increase awareness about the banking ombudsman in State, Banking Ombudsman Office, Patna organised a ‘Customer Awareness Programme on Banking Ombudsman Scheme of RBI’ at a city destination on Friday.
The programme was attended to by controlling heads and nodal officers of major banks along with around 250 bank customers of different banks.
“last year we received around 2700 complains out of which only around 700 were from Jharkhand. There might be twofold reasons for this. Either the bank consumers are satisfied with the services of banks or they are not aware about the institution of ombudsman in banking. The second reason is more likely given the kind of level of literacy in State is concerned. We decided to organise the programme in Jharkhand to raise the awareness and in future we will organsie such awareness programme in Simdega and Palamu also,” said the Patric Barla, Banking Ombudsman, Patna.
In reply to one of the questions of a consumer the banking ombudsman said that it was mandatory for every branch to have a complaints register or a complaints box and any disregard to this guideline was not acceptable. He also said that it was up to the banks to ensure this service.
One of the consumers complained that the SBI in his area didn’t give him any clear cut answer on his application for loans and had made him run multiple times to the bank. On this Assistant General Manager, Reserve Bank of India Patna Gyaneshwar Pathak directed the senior official of SBI to take note of the complain and said that every bank had to reply with “yes or no” with, valid reasons in case they disallow the loan, within 15 days.
As per the information shared by the RBI representatives most of the complaints received were related ATMs/debit cards and pensions.
The programme was also attended to by Tarlochan Singh, Zonal Manager Bank of India. He said that such awareness programmes were handy in making people aware about the institution of ombudsman in banking.
He also opined that usher of technologies in banking had done a lot of good to the consumers and complaining to the banks had become easy business by virtue of this development.
He assured that the banking fraternity in the State would make all out efforts to bring about continuous improvement in the quality and range of services provided by bank branches in the area.
Assistant General Manager, Reserve Bank of India Patna Gyaneshwar Pathak said that the consumers should not have any hesitation in approaching ombudsman for their genuine grievances.
While counting the types of problems covered under the contours of ombudsman Pathak said, any issue pertaining to deposits, wrong transactions through ATMs/Debit Cards, pensions, loans (limited jurisdictions) et cetera.
But no complaints could be heard in case it was being looked at other forums like courts or consumer courts.