- MILAN K SINHA
In our country politics overtakes all other discussions less for good reasons, more for wrong ones. It is also happening with Bangalore ATM incident - a very sensitive public issue, a barbaric act beyond imagination.
In broad daylight a lady was attacked inside an ATM situated at the intersection of Bangalore's one of the busiest locations -the corporation circle. The dare devil act of the miscreant of pulling the shutter without bothering for attracting public attention and then assaulting the lady - a bank officer, to finally robbing the money by injuring her very seriously. The brave lady, who struggled with the robber, as shown in the footage of CCTV camera, is now struggling to get well in a private city hospital.
Naturally, it is pertinent to raise a few basic questions on behalf of the general ATM users. Why even in a metropolitan city like Bangalore, out of total ATMs numbering 2580, more than 600 ATMs didn't have security guards? Why, according to local police, in spite of repeated police call, banks failed to put in place even normal security measures to protect its customers visiting ATMs? What is the mechanism through which the local police take care of the security of branches and ATMs of banks at large? What is the responsibility of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) as controller of Banks in the country in this regard?
Surprisingly, neither the banks nor the RBI has anything specific to ensure security of ATM users. Painfully, the normal blame game and shifting of responsibility have set in. According to bank officials, ‘almost all facilities related to the ATM centre have been outsourced. The agency looks after the facilities provided at the ATM centre. The agency also looks after the installation and maintenance of the ATM machines. In nutshell, the functioning of ATM centres does not come under our purview.’ May be that's the reason one of the general managers of the Corporation Bank in whose ATM the lady bank officer was assaulted said through a press release that taking care of ATM was the job of outsourced security agency. In fact, though very surprising, the Reserve Bank of India guidelines do not prescribe a mandatory security guard in ATMs.
Then, whose responsibility is this? Or, nobody can be held responsible at least as per law, for this state of affairs.
Interestingly, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which is the umbrella organization of all retail payment systems including ATM in India and is set up by the banks with the support and guidance from Indian Banks’ Association (IBA)has its ‘Vision’ of providing ‘Anywhere, Anytime Payment Services, Simple & Easy to Use, Safe & Secured, Fast & Cost Effective’. If that is so, millions of ATM users in the country deserve a point wise reply to such issues which don’t match with NPCI’s vision document in reality.
Now, see the other side of ATM story. Based on NPCI data, the number of ATMs in the country — of public, private, foreign and cooperative banks, part of the National Financial Switch (NFS) connecting all ATMs — has crossed 1.25 lac mark, majority of which have been installed in metropolitan and urban areas. Not only this, notwithstanding the ground reality about the security and other operational issues confronting the management of existing ATMs, the union government has directed public sector banks to have on site ATMs at all their branches as part of government’s financial inclusion drive. It may be recalled that finance minister while delivering his budget speech in Feb’13 had said that PSU banks assured him that all their branches would have an ATM in place by the end of current financial year. To say in plain words, the gap of 34668 ATM is to be bridged by March end as at the end of March'13, these banks had a combined strength of 72,340 branches, of which only 37,672 branches had onsite ATMs.
So, as the things stand, PSU banks are to run against time to install more than 20000 ATMs in residual four months of this fiscal as despite clear directive by ministry and RBI, the state run banks are running behind schedule on this count.
Be as it may, the primary responsibility, by any scale of measurement and judgement, of protecting the interest including safety and security of customers within its premises rests on the shoulder of the banks. They have outsourced this whole process of installation, its operation and maintenance to other agencies based on their business plan and operational convenience. As such, the banks are squarely responsible and accountable for any lapse in rendering safe and secured banking services to its customers who reposed confidence in them by establishing a business relationship under the extant banking norms and regulations.
Undoubtedly, RBI, as the apex bank of the country has a definite role to play not only to monitor the security and safety related aspects of ATMs but also to ensure justification of the tall promise of anytime-anywhere banking. It is because there has been gradual increase in complaints related to non- functional ATMs, failed transactions, ATM frauds to name a few. RBI on its part, must also look into the fact that despite its clean note policy, how even ATMs are dispensing unclean notes as a matter of routine.
Local police must keep a serious watch on ATMs and branches of banks during their routine patrolling and also arrange to have regular security review meeting with all concerned in order help prevent recurrence of such horrific incidents in future.
As always, I am keen to know what you think on this subject. Hence, request you to post Comments to share your views and experiences.
As always, I am keen to know what you think on this subject. Hence, request you to post Comments to share your views and experiences.
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