Relief work at Sagar

Name of the Branch – Civil Lines, Sagar

Brief Description of the project – During 1^st week of july 2004 there was heavy rains in the Sagar town and half of the city was affected by flood. Many lower level colonies submerged in water. Immediately after rains stopped, the Government declared relief to affected peoples. The District Collector called the meeting of all the Bankers at Sagar and assigned the task of distribution of relief to affected peoples. Our branch has accepted the task and we got ready to pay relief to approximately 10000 peoples. The Collector desired to open the accounts so that relief may be deposited in their accounts. We convinced him that opening of account will take more time and some of the people may not be able to complete KYC formalities and will be deprived of relief, therefore, collector agreed to pay relief through order cheques. Some Government Officers were authorized by the Collector to attest signature on reverse of the cheque and for illiterate customers one or two officers were available in the branch for their identification.

Now I came in the branch and took a meeting of all the staff members and narrated the situation. The staff took the situation positively and decided to run the branch by half staff and half will be freed to make payment of relief.

1          All the staff members are involved in the unit as half of the staff agreed to complete the branch work by taking other counters work, while of spared staff had made payment of relief with extra 700-800 payments per staff per day which is atleast three times more than the routine payment handled by a staff member during normal banking days.

2.         During normal banking days the staff handles 100-200 vouchers per day, at that time they handled 700-800 vouchers.

3.         The task could not be completed successfully with out team efforts. This opportunity generated a team spirit among the staff a emotional bond created among the team members which help a lot in improving the branch rating and business in the coming days.

4.         After timely receipt of relief, although funds are received from government the peoples recognized as the funds received from bank and it has created a space for bank in the heart of all the peoples involved. Most of the people has received banking services through our branch.

5.         Those people who had received relief through our branch had opened the account in our branch and still today they introduce new customers to branch. The government authorities appreciated the deed and all funds in future are received by us.

N K Jain

Chief Manager

SBI, Jehangirabad


Courtesy: Suresh Iyer, Facilitator, SBLC, Bhopal