NEW DELHI: After Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Twitter alerted the State Bank of India about the plight of an elderly woman walking barefoot with a plastic chair as a crutch for many kilometres to collect her old-age pension from the SBI branch at Jharigaon in Odisha, the largest lender of the country took stock of the situation and resolved it to ensure such incidents don’t happen again.
Before the Finance minister’s tweet, the bank had said its nearest customer service point couldn’t recognise her fingerprints by the biometric reader at the CSP (Bank Mitra) as it was fading.
The plight of the woman was first highlighted on Thursday in a tweet embedded with a clipping, showing the elderly walking barefoot for kilometres to get to the branch for collecting her old-age pension. A video clip said, “A senior citizen, Surya Harijan, walks many kilometers barefoot with the support of a broken chair to reach a bank to collect her pension in Odisha’s Jharigaon. SBI manager Jharigaon branch says, “Her fingers are broken, so she is facing trouble withdrawing money. We’ll resolve the problem soon”.”
After this, FM Sitharaman tweeted, “Can see the manager of the @TheOfficialSBI responding but yet wish @DFS_India and @TheOfficialSBI take cognisance of this and act humanely. Are they no bank Mitra? @FinMinIndia”, while retweeting the tweet showing the plight of the woman.
After these tweets, the SBI, in a statement, responded on Friday saying, “As per our laid down protocols, the nearest link branch, SBI Jharigaon, immediately paid the pension amount by debiting the amount manually from the pensioner’s account. She has also been reassured by the branch manager of the delivery of pension at her doorstep going forward. As a goodwill gesture, SBI has donated a wheelchair to the pensioner to facilitate her movement”.
“While necessary protocols are already in place to address such situations, we have taken further cognizance of the matter and have initiated reiteration of the guidelines to all our BCs/CSPs (banking correspondent/ customer service point) (Bank Mitra) to contact their link branches in case of any issues faced by them in serving our customers. The bank has also been examining options of installing iris scanners at our BC/CSP (Bank Mitra) channels to address the challenges faced by our senior pensioners/ customers”, it said.
The lender also said it has always aligned its business goals with national priorities, and focused attention is given to a range of financial inclusion activities. “However, an unfortunate incident has recently come to light where one of our senior citizen customers faced difficulty in withdrawing her old age pension from the nearby CSP (Bank Mitra) in Jharigaon block of Nabrangpur district of Odisha on account of her fading fingerprints not being recognized by the biometric reader at the CSP (Bank Mitra)”, it had added. (ANI)