The Banking Ombudsman (BO) of Odisha has outperformed all other BOs in the country by disposing of the highest percentage of complaints. During 2013-14, it disposed of 99% (1,552) of the 1,566 complaints against 97.85% and 95.65% during the years 2011-12 and 2012-13, respectively.
Presenting his annual report to the media here on Friday, Odisha BO Bijay Kumar Mishra said this has become possible due to the monitoring of the complaints with a proactive approach and emphasis on timely resolution of the complaints. He was accompanied by RBI Regional Director Pradipta Kumar Jena.
The number of complaints received has shown a very small fall from the previous year.
Mishra said it calls for a greater effort to create awareness among the user of banking services. He cited certain cases as examples of the impact of the ombudsman’s action which included relief to the holder of a study loan from unfair interest charges and nonpayment of crop insurance claim.
The statistics showed that the SBI still tops the chart of the banks with a share of over 50 per cent of the complaints.
The focus of the complaints is more on breach of commitments related to the Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI) which has relegated the ATM and credit/debit card-related problems to the second place in the list of notoriety.
The BO at Bhubaneswar has jurisdiction over a total of 4,281 bank branches belonging to 41 commercial bank branches and two Regional Rural Banks.
BO Odisha Secretary Asish Ranjan Samal said complaints can be made to the ombudsman by e-mail, post, fax, CPGram or online. Most of the complaints have been received from the urban and semi-urban areas.
The BO believes that more awareness campaign is required in the rural areas where there is dearth of connectivity for which 9 public awareness camps were organised in the last financial year in semi-urban and rural areas.