Monday was an unusually busy day at several bank branches, proving challenging for many bankers, as beneficiaries of the State government’s Rythu Bandhu investment support scheme for farmers made a beeline to get the cheques encashed.
Though not completely unanticipated, the steady stream of people that built up since morning necessitated posting of additional hands at some of the branches, deployment of police personnel for crowd management and redirecting the beneficiaries to nearby branches.
By the evening, a total 2.10 lakh cheques towards ₹262 crore were encashed at the branches of the eight banks partnering the State government in implementation of the one of its kind scheme in the country.
Overall, since the launch of the scheme on Thursday, 3.90 lakh cheques for sums totalling ₹457 crore have been honoured by banks. Of these, the State Bank of India handled 1.68 lakh cheques amounting to ₹195 crore, including 98,000 cheques on Monday for ₹117 crore.
Banks go the extra yard
Some of the banks functioned beyond the scheduled closing time, up to 6 p.m. in some cases, to accommodate the beneficiaries, chief general manager of SBI’s Hyderabad Circle J. Swaminathan said.
While there were a few incidents of heated arguments, frayed tempers and people jostling for space, there was no untoward incident, according to sources in the banking industry.
Bank downs shutters
However, a bank branch in Madnur mandal closed down after farmers agitated over the time taken to encash the cheques and got into altercations with the police.
Other issues that arose on Monday were variation in the names as given in pattadar passbook and the English spelling of the same on cheques.
There were also instances of some of the beneficiaries turning up at the banks to encash the cheques but not being in possession of the pattadar passbook, as they were yet to receive the latter.
Mr. Swaminathan said the variation arose as the names in the pattadar passbook, issued by the State government, were in Telugu, while the cheques were in English.
While in most of these cases, the bankers permitted encashment of the instruments after checking other identity documents of the beneficiaries, they, however, could not accept the request of those without pattadar passbook.
Submission of a photostat copy of the first page of the passbook is mandatory at the time of the beneficiary presenting the cheque.
At a meeting held later in the day, senior officials of the State government assured a team of bankers that directions would be issued to district administration officials, asking them to issue a letter with details of the pattadar passbook that the beneficiaries need to submit with the cheque in case the passbook is yet to be issued to them.
Eight banks are partnering the State government in implementation of the scheme under which a support of ₹4,000 per acre is to be provided to over 58 lakh farmers. The total disbursement under the scheme is around ₹5,700 crore for one crop season.
