March 31 is D-Day, but the boards at the landmark stone edifice at Mysore Bank Circle on Kempe Gowda Road started coming down two days earlier; as if symbolically on Ugadi — the lunar New Year’s Day.
And on Friday, the State Bank of Mysore will slide into history as the curtains come down on a 104-year-old legacy that had an old Mysore royal patronage to its credit. It will merge its identity into big brother State Bank of India forever.
Is it a big deal that a bank that keeps your money or lends it out is getting a new name?
S.R. Powar superannuated from the bank in February after 37 years of service. The feisty former general secretary of the SBM Employees’ Union could not hold back tears as he recalled that he was part of every fight by sections of employees to stave off the merger that was irreversibly sealed on August 18 last year. “It is the end of an era,” he said as he choked with emotion. “I never imagined that banks can die.”
Karnataka has spawned at least five nationalised banks, four of them from the Udupi-Manipal region and SBM from the old Mysore region. SBM, says Mr. Powar, may be a relatively small bank in terms of geographical spread and financial muscle, yet it is special as an institution that was built lovingly by notable founders. Nalvadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar, the then Maharaja of Mysore, donated a princely sum of ₹42 lakh way back in 1913 as seed money for the bank and did not take it back. A renowned personality such as the then Dewan, Sir M. Visveswaraya, was another figure who helped conceive, build it and make it a household name.
SBM had a distinct flavour and a bond with its customers that goes beyond money transactions. Explains Mr. Powar: “People have had an intimate bond with the bank, they call it ‘our bank’ (namma bank or Mysoor bank). If you go to Chikkamagaluru, you can see a token of gratitude to the bank on the walls of virtually every coffee planter’s home. Back in the 1960s, many coffee planters in this belt were hit by serious financial crisis after the crop failed. They had no money. Mysore Bank officials went from home to home and gave them loans. The same is the case with small industries in Peenya. SBM has seen the thick and thin of industrial growth in Karnataka.”
From 1987 onwards, Mr. Powar says he was part of the resistance to merger plans. “It is always an advantage to have a bank with its headquarters in your State. Now these assets will go to Maharashtra. A bigger bank can always grow and globalise without [subsuming] a smaller bank.”
At the end of their day’s work, Giridhara Karkala, Chief General Manager and head of the Ganganagar branch, plans to join many SBM employees in Bengaluru who would be assembling on the head office premises at 5.30 p.m. on Friday. Mr. Karkala, who is due to complete his tenure in SBM in four months, says he is taking the impending change in his stride. Certainly, people who have worked for 20 plus years in the good old days of office camaraderie feel heavy hearted. “When I retire and go home, I will be taking back many happy memories of 37 years. Besides, I have been open to change and transfers.”
