Sanjib Kumar Roy
Port Blair, Sept 02: All the ATM counters of State Bank of India must be declared as State Heritage Structure and must also be thrown open for tourism purpose. The kind of shock value these ATM counters have, perhaps no amusement park in any part of this world, can ever provide.
Every tourist visiting Andaman and Nicobar Islands must be taken inside these ATM counters of SBI for a jaw dropping experience, which will make their Andaman visit thrilling and also a memorable one.
It seems that the SBI is taking especial care to maintain a particular standard in cleanliness and upkeep in all these ATM counters.
None of the ATM counters in A & N Islands has security Guard and therefore finding dozens of people inside the ATM counter at a time is not all an issue for SBI customers. While one customer withdraws money, others keep peeping from behind at his/her PIN number and amount, withdrawn. There are many who give unwanted suggestions from back and entertain the person who is already struggling with the Auto Teller Machine.
It is believed that cleanliness is next to God but it appears that SBI prefers to differ. Most of the ATM counters in Port Blair city are horribly dirty and stinking. Most of the A/Cs do not work and wherever A/Cs are working the temperature remain either extremely low of horribly high. Scenes like water dropping from A/Cs or ATM slips flooding the floor are also very common for Port Blarians. At any point of time 40 percent of SBI ATMs remain out of order or out of money.
Port Blair’s ATM Counters are perhaps the only place in entire India, where one could experience so many shock factors at any point of time. Kudos to State Bank of India, for providing so much of entertainment, for Islanders.
However, when contacted the ATM Channel Manager of State Bank of India, A & N Islands said that there is no such problems with SBI ATM counters since last two or three months.
“None of our ATM ever goes CASH-OUT because we monitor it very closely. If customers are not getting money, that must be because of some other problems. About cleanliness we take special care and whenever there is a complaint to attend the same immediately. We have provided out phone numbers in all ATM counters, where customers can call in case of any problem,” Mr. Olsan Xalxo, the ATM Channel Manager of SBI told Andaman Sheekha.
He added that SBI has already sent proposal to the headquarter to appoint Guard-cum-caretakers for all ATMs. “We believe that this will be done very soon,” he added.
Though SBI never accepts its fault but readers, public and all SBI ATM card users know the ground realities.
