Our Correspondent
Kiphire | May 19
State Bank of India (SBI), the lone national bank in Kiphire district is functioning without a branch manager for nearly three months.
The serving branch manager retired in the first week of February and since then the bank has been functioning without a replacement bringing much inconvenience to the citizens as well as the staff.
SBI staff at Kiphire branch disclosed that due to non-availability of the manager, all advances and loan facility have been kept pending since it needs a bank manager to give final approval.
Due to this, the bank is incurring heavy losses as it survives mostly on loan and advances, they revealed.
Interacting with this correspondent, officials of SBI disclosed that even facilities like conveyance, miscellaneous bills and annual increments of some of the staff are pending.
On the facilities that the Kiphire branch is lacking, the SBI officials said the district branch should have advance ATM facility; cash deposit machine and self-updating passbook. Further, the only ATM machine that the district has is always malfunctioning and closed most of the time.
People in the know how pointed out that the branch needs sufficient experienced bank employees so that the facilities available for businesspersons, students, service personnel and citizens is made available. Due to lack of sufficient experienced staff, customers are not able to avail the benefit of various welfare schemes, designed to uplift the economy of the rural people.
The Joint Area Students’ Union (JASU) of Kiphire highlighted the banking issue only recently; however, the concerned authorities are yet to address the grievances of the citizens, it is also learnt.
On top of it all, there is apprehension that the 38 year old building, which houses the SBI, is on the verge of collapse. However, with no branch manager to take the matter forward, the bank continues to do business in the old shaky building.
