When DFS secretary plays the role of Vikramaditya

Customer service and excellence are buzzwords as govt and RBI write a new chapter in Indian banking

- TAMAL BANDYOPADHYAY

Legend has it that King Vikramaditya of the Gupta Dynasty frequently disguised himself as a commoner to assess the wellbeing and conditions of his subjects. Recently, the secretary in the Department of Financial Services (DFS), Ministry of Finance, played the role of Vikramaditya to check how banks were serving their customers. Of course, unlike the ruler of Ujjain, he was not in disguise.

On April 8, after lunch, M Nagaraju, a 1993-batch Indian Administrative Service officer, left North Block, which houses the finance ministry, and drove down to the Parliament Street branch of a large public-sector bank. Posing as a customer, he wanted to say hello to the branch manager.

The secretary was directed to an officer by the head of the branch who was too busy talking on his mobile phone. Even the second banker didn't care much to talk to him. At that point, Nagaraju politely revealed that he was the boss of the bank's boss. Even that did not cut the ice, as name-dropping is not uncommon in Delhi culture.

Neither the branch manager, holding the rank of an assistant general manager (AGM), nor the other executive, was willing to talk to the "customer", who had walked in after office hours. In the public-sector banking industry, an AGM rank is part of the senior management grade, typically a Scale-V officer. Deputy general managers, general managers and chief general managers form the top management grade.

Without losing time, Nagaraju relayed his first-hand experience of the branch's customer service to the bank's headquarters. The consequences were swift: The AGM was transferred to a remote village.

This was one of the three branches-of three different public-sector banks-which the DFS secretary visited that evening. I believe his experience at the other two banks was not as bad as the first one, but the ambience of the branches and the demeanour of the bankers convinced him of the urgent need for better customer service at banks.