Bank Mitras of public sector bank hold protest

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 15

Bank Mitras (Business Correspondents) engaged by a government sector bank staged a protest outside its circle office here today, alleging that the bank management was exploiting them.

The agitators stated that the concept of Business Correspondents was introduced to provide banking services to residents of the areas where it was not economically viable to open a branch or an ATM.

Bank Mitter Employees Federation president Beant Singh Sandhu said, “The account holders who prefer to do business through us are asked to pay 0.60 per cent cash head charge on deposits. This has been done to discourage people from depositing cash with us.” He said that the bank had also stopped payment of 0.40 per cent commission on deposits over Rs 25,000.

He said that banks were also asking them to make payments for installation of micro ATM machines in these areas. “We demand that banks should provide the service at its own cost,” he said. He said that the banks should also form a committee with representatives of the federation in it to take up the problems faced by them.