Consumers run from pillar-to-post to open bank account

Pushpam (name changed) has been going to a bank branch, where her husband has an account, for three days. She needs to open an account to get the LPG cylinder subsidy directly.

However, when she went to submit the filled-in form, she was told that the branch will accept the forms only at a specific time and only from consumers from specific areas.

It took her three days to finally talk to the banker and open an account.

Many like Pushpam, who do not have a bank account, have been rushing to the banks during the last two weeks to open an account so that they can link their Aadhaar number to the bank account and get the subsidy directly.

Some of them have to take permission from work to open an account, get Aadhaar enrolment or submit the forms to the banks and the LPG distributors. They are asked to come again if the required documents are not there, there are shortage of forms, there are spelling discrepancies, difference in address, etc.

In some cases, the beneficiary has a joint account with one of the family members. There are requests for a separate account. There are many who have not operated the account for the last two or three years and want to activate it now. Some banks ask them to open another account.

“They are making us run from pillar-to-post,” laments another consumer, who has come to the bank branch twice with his aged mother.

A couple of bankers whom The Hindu spoke to explained that there is a rush, especially in the morning hours.

“We have limited staff strength and they have the day-to-day banking activities. Our regular work is affected to some extent because of the rush. We get at least 50 to 60 customers every day and at least 50 per cent of them want to open a new account,” says a bank manager in the city.

In some branches, there are no clear instructions on what should be done with form 3. “We collect the form with know your customer document. But, we do not know what to do with it as we are unable to upload in our system,” they say. The branch has about 40,000 customers. There are requests for address change, making corrections in name or address of the account holder, opening of new account, or just linking the Aadhaar number to the account. The branch as designated a couple of staff to upload the data. “We upload 500 to 1,000 numbers a day,” they say.

Official sources say that as of now 56 banks in the district have been added to the scheme for disbursement of subsidy to those who have not enrolled for Aadhaar. And, it includes private sector banks. If there are requests from more banks, it could be done. Banks will have to upload the data to the system so that consumers, those who have Aadhaar and those who do not, get the subsidy directly. It is not mandatory that branches should open accounts only for consumers from the wards suggested to the banks.