UP switches to Allahabad Bank
VISHAL SHARMA
Agra. The Uttar Pradesh government decided to shift its banking transactions from SBI to Allahabad Bank. From April 6, Allahabad Bank will performs treasury functions for the state government.
According to a government order issued by UP Principal Secretary (finance) Shekhar Agarwal, the district magistrates and treasuries of all UP districts have been directed to shift their banking transactions to the Allahabad Bank to prevent the collapse of the state's economy due to the SBI employees' strike.
District magistrates were asked to ensure the safety of cash stacked at the sub-treasuries in each district.
According to Agarwal, the state government departments will continue to avail the services of Allahabad Bank during the period of the strike as the bank had been authorised by the Reserve Bank of India to handle state government accounts during the strike.
Owing to the strike the state government, at the beginning of the new fiscal year, has no clue about its balance position with the RBI, whether its account was within Ways and Means Advance limit or it was running in overdraft.
SBI conducts treasury functions for the state government in 66 district treasuries, out of 73 treasuries, and 390 sub treasuries at sub-division level in 70 districts.
In rest of the districts Allahabad Bank is the banker of the state government.
Official sources here said the Chief general manager of the SBI, in a written communication on April 1, had advised the state government to take over the treasury functions in view of strike call.
The CGM had advised the government to withdraw sufficient cash and store the same in cash chest of district treasuries to avoid crisis in salary dissbursement.The delay by the state government in taking over the treasury function led to the problems in salary disbursement.
Sub treasuries are flooded with the cash. To cope with the problem of plenty cash the state government is utlisising the currency to meet its routine expenditure besides distribution of the salary of state staff.
As the state's 1.6 million employees are supposed to be given their salaries during the first ten days of the month, the strike could cause a delay in this distribution. Shifting the transactions to Allahabad Bank will prove to be helpful for the purpose and this month, the state government employees will get their salaries from the Allahabad Bank.
Meanwhile, the strike has begun to seriously affect the state's business transactions at the very beginning of the new financial year.
In Agra alone, transactions worth Rs 135 crore remained stuck in different banks due to the SBI strike in the past four days and the MICR cheque clearing center of the Punjab National Bank, which processes almost 18,000 cheques every day, was processing lesser and lesser cheques with the passing time, even though the strike had not affected the transactions of other banks as the SBI alone was responsible of generating cheques worth Rs 15-20 crore per day, that had stopped arriving due to the strike.
Also, with the four SBI ATMs in Agra becoming empty of cash, the banking customers were forced to resort to withdraw cash from other "allied" banks but as the bank is yet to issue ATM-Debit cards to about 90 per cent of its customers, most of the customers were feeling duped by this bank strike, unable to withdraw cash from their accounts.
Besides, a large number of customers also complained of their accounts having been depleted as the bank strike had prevented their cheques from being credited to their accounts and they had already withdrawn whatever was left in their accounts during the strike period.
According to a government order issued by UP Principal Secretary (finance) Shekhar Agarwal, the district magistrates and treasuries of all UP districts have been directed to shift their banking transactions to the Allahabad Bank to prevent the collapse of the state's economy due to the SBI employees' strike.
District magistrates were asked to ensure the safety of cash stacked at the sub-treasuries in each district.
According to Agarwal, the state government departments will continue to avail the services of Allahabad Bank during the period of the strike as the bank had been authorised by the Reserve Bank of India to handle state government accounts during the strike.
Owing to the strike the state government, at the beginning of the new fiscal year, has no clue about its balance position with the RBI, whether its account was within Ways and Means Advance limit or it was running in overdraft.
SBI conducts treasury functions for the state government in 66 district treasuries, out of 73 treasuries, and 390 sub treasuries at sub-division level in 70 districts.
In rest of the districts Allahabad Bank is the banker of the state government.
Official sources here said the Chief general manager of the SBI, in a written communication on April 1, had advised the state government to take over the treasury functions in view of strike call.
The CGM had advised the government to withdraw sufficient cash and store the same in cash chest of district treasuries to avoid crisis in salary dissbursement.The delay by the state government in taking over the treasury function led to the problems in salary disbursement.
Sub treasuries are flooded with the cash. To cope with the problem of plenty cash the state government is utlisising the currency to meet its routine expenditure besides distribution of the salary of state staff.
As the state's 1.6 million employees are supposed to be given their salaries during the first ten days of the month, the strike could cause a delay in this distribution. Shifting the transactions to Allahabad Bank will prove to be helpful for the purpose and this month, the state government employees will get their salaries from the Allahabad Bank.
Meanwhile, the strike has begun to seriously affect the state's business transactions at the very beginning of the new financial year.
In Agra alone, transactions worth Rs 135 crore remained stuck in different banks due to the SBI strike in the past four days and the MICR cheque clearing center of the Punjab National Bank, which processes almost 18,000 cheques every day, was processing lesser and lesser cheques with the passing time, even though the strike had not affected the transactions of other banks as the SBI alone was responsible of generating cheques worth Rs 15-20 crore per day, that had stopped arriving due to the strike.
Also, with the four SBI ATMs in Agra becoming empty of cash, the banking customers were forced to resort to withdraw cash from other "allied" banks but as the bank is yet to issue ATM-Debit cards to about 90 per cent of its customers, most of the customers were feeling duped by this bank strike, unable to withdraw cash from their accounts.
Besides, a large number of customers also complained of their accounts having been depleted as the bank strike had prevented their cheques from being credited to their accounts and they had already withdrawn whatever was left in their accounts during the strike period.
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