Union resents Centre’s directive, says banks understaffed

The Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has resented the Centre’s directive to set up Aadhaar enrolment facilitation centres at the banks from October 1 to help customers meet the December 31 deadline to link their accounts to the 12-digit Aadhaar number.

S.S. Anil, State general secretary, BEFI, pointed out that this was a huge burden on the banks which were already understaffed. “Already, staff of most banks are overworked,” Mr. Anil told The Hindu .

“The banks would have to divert a section of the staff for manning the Aadhaar centres to be set up on the bank premises, and this cripples the banking services.”

The Unique Identification Authority of India has wanted banks to facilitate Aadhaar enrolment, updating and correcting of the errors in the Aadhaar records of the customers. The RBI has directed both public and private banks to set up the facilitation centres in at least 10% of all the branches. This would mean that 12,000 branches, out of an estimated 1,20,000 across the country, would have to set up such centres.

Aadhaar linking service

The Centre has made it compulsory for all existing bank customers to link their accounts to Aadhaar. Those failing to do so would be denied access to their accounts after December 31. Most banks are now offering online Aadhaar linking service to customers, but a huge section is not able to make use of this because of illiteracy, lack of e-literacy or shortage of online facilities.

Mr. Anil pointed out that Aadhaar linking was not strictly a banking service to be offered by the banks. “What if the banks are next asked to set up facilities to offer electoral ID service and driving licence issuing service too,” he wondered.

Demonetisation

He said that the currency-note change task in the wake of last year’s demonetisation that lasted several months had crippled the banking services as the staff and other resources had to be diverted for the task. Lending and other banking service had been informally suspended for months which had drastically reduced banks’ revenues.

Mr. Anil said that while private banks too were asked to offer the Aadhaar service, the experience so far showed that only the nationalised banks would have to shoulder the demanding task.

The banks would have to divert a section of the staff for manning the Aadhaar centres to be set up on the bank premises

S.S. Anil

State general secretary, BEFI