SBI faces protests over hiked transaction charges

charges on its customers as they feel it could exclude the poor people from the banking system.

S. Nagarajan, general secretary of the AIBOA, told The Sunday Guardian: “Imposing incidental charges on customers is arbitrary and public sector banks cannot specify the minimum balances to their customers.”

In the protest held earlier this week by both the organisations across the country, members and employees demonstrated outside SBI branches. They also put up posters at the SBI branches highlighting their demands to withdraw such charges levied on customers. Some members also protested by wearing badges and carrying posters inside the SBI branches across the country.

J.P. Sharma, president of AIBEA’s Delhi Chapter, told this newspaper: “Such a decision is against the principle of inclusive banking in a poor country like India. This is an arbitrary move by the bank to charge customers for every transaction.”

The SBI has started charging its customers from 1 April this year, including pen- alty for non-maintenance of Monthly Average Balance of Rs 5,000 for metro cities, and Rs 3,000, Rs 2,000 and Rs 1,000 for urban, semi-urban and rural areas, respectively. Failure to maintain Monthly Average Balance in accounts will attract penalty of up to Rs 100 plus service tax. For rural areas, the penalty ranges from Rs 20-50 plus service tax.

Charges for depositing and withdrawing money in savings bank accounts have also been fixed. Only three free deposits would be allowed monthly, and three free withdrawals. While there is lot of public sentiment attached to the kidnapping of former Indian Navy personnel Kulbhushan Jadhav from Iran and his subsequent death sentence by a Pakistani military court, there also seems to exist much public ire at the “failure” of the Indian diplomatic machinery to bring back India’s financial offenders who allegedly escaped to foreign waters to avoid prosecution.

Segregating the two issues, A. B. Mahapatra, Director, CASS-India (Centre for Asian Strategic Studies), said, “Diplomacy plays a key role when it comes to handling matters related to our countrymen living abroad. In the case of Kulbhushan Jadhav, we don’t have an extradition treaty with Pakistan, but we do have a set-up of bilateral relations and consular channels to deal with each other. However, with Pakistan in the equation, every matter between the two nations goes up notches higher. But we do not have a similar excuse to make when it comes to extraditing financial offenders who were allowed to escape to other nations.”

Earlier this week, a Delhi court had issued an openended Non-Bailable Warrant (NBW) against businessman Vijay Mallya in a case of allegedly evading summons in a FERA violation matter.