Banks with over 10 branches to have ombudsman: RBI
Mumbai, Sep 3 : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday asked all scheduled commercial banks with more than 10 branches to appoint an Internal Ombudsman (IO). It, however, excluded Regional Rural Banks (RRB) from the requirement.
"The IO shall examine customer complaints which are in the nature of deficiency in service on the part of the bank, that are partly or wholly rejected by the bank," the RBI said in a release introducing the Internal Ombudsman Scheme, 2018.
The IO mechanism was set up with a view to strengthening the internal grievance redress system of banks and to ensure that the complaints of the customers are redressed at the level of the bank itself, the apex bank said.
With an IO, the redress will be done by an authority placed at the highest level of bank's grievance redressal mechanism. It will minimize the need for the customers to approach other fora for redressal, the RBI said.
As a part of this customer-centric approach, the banking regulator issued revised directions in the form of 'Internal Ombudsman Scheme, 2018' to enhance the independence of the IO and to strengthen the monitoring system.
The IO Scheme will cover appointment, tenure, roles and responsibilities, procedural guidelines and oversight mechanism for the IO, among other things. Its execution will be monitored by the bank's internal audit mechanism apart from regulatory oversight by RBI.
The RBI had, in May 2015, advised all public sector and select private and foreign banks to appoint IOs as an independent authority to review complaints that were partially or wholly rejected by the respective banks.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
