BOI falters at doorstep

LOHARDAGA: The doorstep service of Bank of India (BOI), being the lead bank in the district, has flopped at Doba, the village adopted by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) under its model village banking programme.  Reserve Bank Governor D.Subbarao had visited the village on December 15 to announce the scheme in a bankers' show attended by many top bankers from the country. The BOI's doorstep banking service, launched in the function, was showcased by a business correspondent by inserting smart cards into a mobile machine before Subbarao.  Three months later, the service is yet to start in the village. More than 1,200 villagers had opened their accounts to avail themselves of the service but no one, barring the one introduced to the RBI governor during the December 15 function, has been provided with the smart card which is to be used for activation of account through the machine connected to Internet.  Reena Mariyana Lakra, the business correspondent, said she had the machine at home which could not be operated as none of the account holders had been given smart cards. "Some days back I was given some smart cards which were taken back by the block unit of the BOI. I had distributed some of the cards which I had to return to the bank," she said. She added that out of over 1,200 account holders only 150 had been provided passbooks. "This delay, however, is going against the RBI's motto of making Doba a 100 per cent banking aware village," said Punam Minz, an anganwari sevika at Doba.  District lead bank manager John Kacchap said doorstep banking service was dead since the accounts had not been uploaded on Internet. He, however, claimed that pass books had been distributed. "I talked to the BOI Kuru branch officials, zonal office in Ranchi and the service implementing agency "Integra" in this connection and we are trying to start the service within a week's time," he added.