‘Banks may have failed Nagaland’s core, needy population

Dimapur, June 10 : Banking institutions in Nagaland have failed in reaching the core populations of Nagaland and banks don’t come forward in helping people in availing loans; even the subsidized loans given by the government to the beneficiaries cannot be availed, a district official has lamented during a recent event in Dimapur.

Dimapur is the major commercial centre with the highest number of 57 bank branches but still a lot of population without a bank account mainly due ignorance or the difficulty faced while opening of bank accounts with the procedures to be followed.
This statement was acknowledged by Dimapur’s Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC) Elizabeth Ngully at the one day UGC-sponsored national seminar organized by Public College of Commerce Dimapur on the theme ‘quality of banking services and its impact on customer satisfaction with special reference to Nagaland’.

The seminar was organized in collaboration with State Bank of India (SBI) Regional business office Dimapur on Friday at Hotel Theja Fort Conference Hall.

Drawing attention to her focus “quality of banking services and its impact on customer satisfaction with special reference to Nagaland,” the ADC maintained that majority of the population are still unaware of the facilities, schemes, policies being provided by the banks. Some even have a fear psychosis in approaching the banks because they feel that whatever little money they have will be taken away without a hope of return, Ngully said.

Stressing on the banking system of the state, she stated that most banks operating in Nagaland is just to collect the deposits and their only approach is to the well known and successful customers. The banks have still not been successful in reaching out to the total population and a lot of people have no idea as to how to avail loans. The only loan people are aware of is the car loan with a few people aware of personal loan and house building loan.

“The banks don’t come forward in helping people in availing loans; even the subsidized loans given by the government to the beneficiaries cannot be availed of,” remarked Elizabeth. The beneficiary she added has a hard time running from pillar to post because a person are told to produce endless documents leaving the beneficiaries out of their time period. This she said is the much prevailing scenario in Nagaland.

Therefore she called on the banks to change their attitude and outlook and take care of every individual as a customer regardless of their status. Reminding the banks that to compete in this global industry, one must offer services that create customer satisfaction and every customer is to be regarded as the most important factor in the banking industry and other industries as well. Banks must look from within and see whether they are equipped to meet the challenges of the economy persuaded Elizabeth.

The banking network in the state of Nagaland is not as large and wide as in other parts of the country. The records however indicate that there is a steady growth in the functioning of this sector in the state.

Out of the total 28 banks operating in the state, 17 are nationalized/public sector commercial banks, nine are national level private sector commercial banks, one state owned co-operative bank and one regional rural bank. The state has a total of 161 bank branches, eleven regional rural banks and 21 co-operative banks. The area wise distribution of bank branches in the state is 106 in rural areas, 44 in semi-urban areas and eleven in the rural areas.

It is found that most of the banks and their branches in Nagaland are concentrated in the districts of Dimapur and Kohima. All the 28 banks operating in Nagaland are found to exist in Dimapur and 16 banks in Kohima.

Out of the 161 bank branches in Nagaland, 92 branches i.e. 57.14% are found in these districts alone. Dimapur is the major commercial center with the highest number of bank branches (57) followed by Kohima (35) and Mokokchung (24).

This shows the unavailability of proper and adequate banking facilities in the other eight districts and poor banking network concluded the ADC.

Guest of honor AGM SBI Dimapur Branch Deboyjoti Dutta supplementing to the chief guest ADC Elizabeth Ngully’s take on the banking services in the state maintained that it is a challenging task for a bank to provide good customer services as the customer services is minimum expectation for a customer with automated machines available and people now expect more than customer satisfaction. Customers he said suffers even though banks try to provide the best services.

In Nagaland scenario the problem with the clients is most transaction is done in cash and not making use of the automated machines articulated Dutta and acknowledged that banks in Nagaland do not practice consistency.