Khidmat Centres remain underutilized
Bilal Zargar
Waiting for the queues and groups the Covid19 is in its full potential to impose its order of destruction. Our negligence is its best tool to rule over us. We may unintentionally allow it to spread its wings and this is the thing it is looking for to gain momentum.
The Government may be at its best in utilizing all the relevant assets to control this pandemic which may otherwise become an epidemic too difficult to control but some of those assigned with the job to help in prevention are still in a great slumber. Their arrogance and the lack of seriousness is evident.
Leaving it to the department of health alone is an injustice. They are men and women like us with all those weaknesses. With limited resources at their disposal it is our job to prevent this department from a disastrous collapse. How we can help is to simply cooperate. There is no space for being lenient. Those entrusted with the authority as well as privilege to fulfill the basic needs of society must ensure a mechanism where the safety of the people is made possible and their helplessness is addressed.
One of those reputed assets of our Union Territory is the J&K Bank. This being a universal Bank for the residents of Jammu and Kashmir has in addition to its business interests certain social responsibilities. If fulfils most of them without doubt. But here in this unexpected situation of pandemic where the lives of millions of people are at stake it choose to be ruled by arrogance and incompetence.
The social media is flooded with the images of people in huge numbers outside J&K Bank Business Units. When people gather because of any existential need in such a way, it turns into a situation difficult to control and here is the opportunity for this pandemic to unleash an epidemic. Who made people to gather outside J&K Bank Branches today is the Bank itself.
The scholarship amounts from the Government were credited to the student accounts and people were waiting in queues outside J&K Bank Business Units to withdraw those amounts. The J&K Bank had the best option to utilize the services of Khidmat Centres for this purpose.
The Khidmat Centres (as business correspondents of the J&K Bank) are well versed with the basic banking; are experienced in handling cash transactions of this nature through KIOSK machines but having no moral and financial support from the Bank and in the absence of any protective measures for these professionals, most of them choose to remain indoors instead of serving. Even after directions from the Government, the J&K Bank choose not to involve Khidmat Centres actively in the process. And this is the arrogance this pandemic is looking for.
The Khidmat Centres having their presence in almost each and every cluster of villages can be approached anytime by the public, can offer their services after office hours also but here the J&K Bank choose not to go for this option because of its habitual attitude towards Khidmat Centres.
What Khidmat Centres need in this hour of need is a moral appreciation and a financial support (as these professionals haven’t learned anything since August 2019). It is this attitude in the past also which destroyed the lives and careers of the professionals associated with these Khidmat Centres.
The Government is directly responsible for the trouble that J&K Bank unleashed on these Khidmat Centres. The Government may watch all this without reactions but someday the Khidmat Centres need to be rehabilitated. For three months straight, the Khidmat Centre Professionals were on protest at Jammu Press Club but after the Covid19 outbreak, following the Government advisories, the Khidmat Centre Professionals returned to their homes. Having learned nothing from August 2019, the Khidmat Centres are facing existential crisis.
While I was writing this article and was about to finish the above paragraph, I was informed on call by a friend that the J&K Bank has announced certain things favouring Khidmat Centres. I would like to mentionthose things here:
- A lump sum of Rs. 1500 (rupees fifteen hundred only) for each BC for purchase of sanitization items, masks, gloves, body covers etc.
- A fixed commission of Rs. 3000 (rupees three thousand only) per month for three months from April to June 2020.
Now what I was writing above before getting the news can be gauged easily. In delivering the Banking services the Khidmat Centres are at no less risk as there are health workers and unfortunately no step has been taken to insure the lives of Khidmat Centre Professionals here.
Dealing with cash which changes hundreds of hands before reaching them, taking their own biometric authentications as well the biometric authentications of customers, using the same KIOSK machine for hundreds of different ATM cards manually, managing the space for customers, serving at the doorsteps of customers in case of emergencies or for elderly, the Khidmat Centres are now required to serve without any security.
An amount of Rs. 1500/= and Rs. 3000/= for sanitization and as commission to serve seems a joke and those who though to make this joke relevant for Khidmat Centres are the Top Executives of the J&K Bank. Their own children may be secure under many layers of prevention and here the Khidmat Centre professionals not less educated than the bankers themselves are told to serve with a lollipop of Rs. 3000/= and a commission which they have to earn at the cost of their lives.
The above mentioned does in no way indicates that Khidmat Centres are not ready to serve at this time of need but certain questions remain unanswered. What if any Khidmat Centre professional while servinggets infected with Covid19 ? What if he or she dies because of this ? And who will take care of the families of these professionals as most of them have parents in their old ages; are married; have children.
On protest for three months un-interrupted before the outbreak of this pandemic, the miseries of Khidmat Centre Professionals were not acknowledged by the Government or by the J&K Bank but now when the risk factor is at its highest a new obituary for the Khidmat Centres has been written in careful words by the J&K Bank and circulated proudly.
The Khidmat Centre professionals are educated and mature enough to understand that National Interests must supersede personal interests. The long queues today at J&K Bank Braches troubled most of us. The insecurity and desperateness with which the people were waiting in queues could make any compassionate person to step in for help and here our “branded” name is KHIDMAT CENTRES so how could we rest in oblivion. Take even your lollipop back, we are ready to serve. But if you are sincere, compassionate, serious and honest enough then pay us and secure us the way we deserve. Our protest is on hold; let us ensure our service to the nation firstuninsured.
(The writer is a representative of Khidmat Centres)
