RBI stresses on better customer services in NE region

Agartala, Aug 31, 2012 : “All the Non-Banking Financial Corporation (NBFC), popularly known as chit fund companies working in Tripura do not have any ‘registration or affiliation from Reserve bank of India (RBI)”, said BB Sangma, RBI’s Ombudsman for Northeast region.

Speaking with media persons here at RBI branch office on Thursday, Sangma appreciated the role of the Tripura government for crackdown of unscrupulous functioning of NBFC.

‘The formation of a separate wing in CID by Tripura state government to tackle with forgery of NBFCs, is an instance in the country for its alertness and determination to save the money of people’, said Sangma.

He said, banks in the Northeast are not improving their banking and customer services.

In the Ombudsman wing, RBI receives numerous complaints every year. Tripura stands at second position with 48 complaints after Assam with 536 complaints”, he added. “We have asked the banks to improve their services and follow the rules based on the banking ombudsman scheme, which they have to do”, said Sangma 

The Banking Ombudsman Scheme has been introduced by Reserve Bank of India on June 14, 1995, to provide an expeditious and inexpensive forum to bank customers for resolution of their complaints relating to deficiency in banking services provided by commercial banks, regional rural banks and scheduled primary co-operative banks.

The Ombudsman stressed on more awareness among the customers and initiated massive awareness programme across the state to make the people aware about banking.

Sangma admitted that there are severe scarcities of small denomination currencies in Tripura market and assured that RBI would take in initiative to solve the problem. Among others, AK Pandey, General Manager of RBI Agartala and DGM Guwahati AK Kureel were also present.

YC election results declared, Sushanta Choudhury re-elected state president

Agartala, Aug 30, 2012 : Sushanta Choudhury was re-elected as president of Tripura Pradesh Youth Congress for the second consecutive term today. He was declared victorious with the largest share of votes after counting of second phase of Youth Congress organizational elections concluded this afternoon. Sushanta Choudhury bagged 3,457 votes while Sushanta Chakraborty, other favourite of the poll fray ended with 2,122 votes. Hollywood Chakma, other contestant of the polls landed with 219 votes in his bag, Pramod Reang had 135 votes, Rabindra Dutta had 124 votes, Joydami Tripura – the lone female member of Youth Congress who contested in last organizational elections bagged 112 votes while Sharmila Haldar had 65 votes.

While celebrations were seen in many parts of Agartala after the results came out, Barman faction inside the Congress party seemed a bit troubled throughout the day. Candidates put up by six anti-Barman Congress MLAs – Dilip Sarkar, Surajit Dutta, Subal Bhowmik, Manoj Kanti Deb, Gopal Roy and Birajit Sinha, were declared victorious in their respective block and assembly constituency seats. Meanwhile, candidate put up by MLA Ashish Kumar Saha, well known ally of the incumbent PCC president, suffered defeat in the organizational elections.

INPT likely to contest alone in 2013 assembly election

Agartala, Aug 30, 2012 : With less than six months left for the coming assembly elections, emergence of split seems to be only a matter of time within opposition alliance in Tripura. Indigenous Nationalist Party of Twipra (INPT), prime ally of Congress in the state politics, is extremely discontented with progress in seat sharing discussion for contesting in the election, sources said inside the party. Speaking to Tripurainfo.com, INPT general secretary Jagdish Debbarma said on Thursday that dialogue for seat sharing is going on between INPT and Congress. The leader, however, visibly expressed dissatisfaction at the progress of dialogue saying that if the larger ally declines to allow reasonable seats to INPT for the elections, they would be left with no other option but to contest alone.

Four separate meetings on the issue between Congress and INPT have gone inconclusive till date with Congress firmly sticking to its stance of rejecting the seats demanded by its ally. INPT contested in 11 seats in 2008 assembly election and emerged victorious in only one. A large section of the Pradesh Congress leaders are averse to experimenting a faint chance of INPT-sentiment in majority of ST reserved seats, especially looking at their massive losses last season.

INPT general secretary Jagdish Debbarma, however, brushed aside the logic that if INPT can’t be considered for larger share of ST reserved seats due to defeat in 2008, so should be Congress. “Congress contested in nine ST reserved assembly constituency seats in 2008 and couldn’t bring even one victory. What should we think about that?” asked a defiant Jagdish. “We are still keeping trust in mutual cooperation and trust. Seat sharing discussion is still going on and there is room for consideration, we believe. It would be too premature to state anything specifically on contesting alone”, he added.

UBI fund embezzlement in Shantirbazar branch

Agartala, Aug 30, 2012 : In a massive embezzlement case, a branch manager of Shantirbazar branch of United Bank of India (UBI) was suspended and a specific case has also been launched against a employee of the branch.

Sources said, Rajendra Das, a temporary computer operator of UBI’s Shantirbazar branch had been assigned the task to maintain the daily operations of the funds for pensioners, wages of MGNREGA and old age pension since August 26, 2006 till date.

During the period, Rajendra Das managed to transfer the amount of Rs 3 lakh in the account of his father (Rabindra Das) , Rs 28.32 lakh into his mother’s (Manjurani Das)account, Rs 19.20 lakh into his brother-in-law ‘s(Litan das) account through the computerized system of UBI .

In May, 2012, when Rajendra tried to open a fixed deposit account at the Shantirbazar branch of UBI, entire embezzlement of fund was noticed by the officials of UBI branch. In the meantime, accused Rajendra managed to escape from the bank.

Soon after the incident, the top officials of UBI from Kolkata camped at Shantirbazar branch and during their investigation they recovered all transaction details of forgery of government funds.

On Wednesday, UBI filed a specific case against accused Rajendra Das and suspended branch manager Shankar Malakar on charges of dereliction of duty.

So far, main accused Rajendra Das has remained untraced.