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Union finance minister’s episode with the president of the State Bank of India in public where the bank officer was allegedly misbehaved with isn’t dying down, despite a clarification by the finance ministry.
The banking associations have criticised the finance minister for her attitude but in this fight for pride the issue of labours appears gaining highlight. In fact the reason for what the finance minister said to the bank officer is not that they are worried for labours but the forthcoming elections as the votes of labours from tea states in upper Assam are decisive there.
The Assam government got bank accounts opened in 2017 for about 7 lakh labours and announced to deposit Rs 5000 but due to laxity of the bank officials and also due to lack of documents those accounts were made defunct. It was due to the reason that Nirmala Sitaraman had scolded the officer in public. When this video went viral the government issued a clarification. And the banking associations have also criticised this episode.
The Assam government in 2017-2018 budget had announced Rs 5000 each for such 7.21 lakh bank accounts that were opened soon after the demonitisation. In the first phase Rs 2500 were deposited in account of 752 tea estates in 26 districts and spent Rs 182 crore on this transaction.
The second installment was deposited in January 2019. But for the reasons still not known the bank stopped transactions in those accounts. This spread anger in the BJP led government in the state. The complaint was made with the finance minister who was attending a function organised by the State Bank of India in Guwahati.
The audio clip that went viral has voice of Nirmala Sitaraman who is telling Rajneesh Kumar in public that the bank deliberately ignored those accounts of the tea estate labours and has put the government down before them.
She event went on to say the bank as insensitive one. She said that the failure in distribution of the load was entire upon the bank. The function had senior bank officials and also senior officials of the state government.
The alleged audio clip has Sitaraman saying, ‘don’t tell me that you are the biggest bank. You are ruthless and incapable bank’. She asked how can these accounts be started at the earliest. On this a senior official of the bank is heard telling this requires some permission from the RBI and it can be done in a week.
Then she says that officials should not test her tolerance level. She said that about 7 lakh tea estate labours are deprived to access their Jan Dhan bank accounts and this has stopped direct benefit transfer for them.
The All India Bank Officers Confederation on the other hand objected to this attitude of the finance minister to have publicly scolded the officer. In a statement the association said it condems the act and the public representatives should avoid such act of degrading an officer. Later the association took back its statement.
Assam’s finance minister Hemant Bisw Sharma who was also present in the function in his tweet thanks Sitaraman for understanding the pain of those on the verge. The Assam tea business is passing through bad times and labours in several estates are not getting salary on time and also are allegedly being deprived of food grain.
Due to blockage on the Jan Dhan bank account the labours are unable to take money or do any transaction. The government is passing financial aid to them but they are unable to take out money.
The political analysts say that the public episode between the finance minister and the bank officer the finance minister has tried to keep the bonding between party and voters intact. But she has earned the anger of the banking industry.
