Ranchi, Nov. 2: The customers of the State Bank of India (SBI) had a harrowing experience during the festival of lights. They had to return home empty-handed on Saturday and Monday, as the bank could not provide them money because of a prolonged link failure.

The teachers of many private schools also faced troubles and could not withdraw their salaries on Monday.

Early this year, the SBI had started core-banking facility with much pomp and show to ensure that its customers get the best banking facilities.

Core-banking enables customers of any SBI branch to do transactions at any branch of the bank across the country.

But the facility has been constantly troubling its customers because of the constant link failure. On Saturday last, too, the bank officials had to sit idle once again because of the link failure.

On Monday, customers repeatedly enquired about the balance in their accounts and the clearing status of their cheques, but they got no reply from the bank authorities.

The bank officials could not be of much help, as the branches in Ranchi are all directly linked to the Mumbai head office. According to the officials, the accounts are all updated through the Internet via a server in Mumbai.

They also pleaded that because of the number of account holders in SBI, the bank?s network always remains very busy.

Terming the problem as ?initial pangs? in the process of modernisation of the bank, the SBI officials said the situation would improve very soon.

?We cannot do anything from the here. But people in Mumbai are engaged in solving the persisting problem. Link failure has no solution from the local centres and has to be maintained from Mumbai.

?Initially, there were more of such problems, but then the numbers of branches were also few. But now, their numbers have gone up, leading to an increased load on the main server,? said Ravi Nag, a senior SBI official.

There are about 11-crore account holders of SBI all over India while Ranchi has over 18 branches. Out of these, 15 branches are linked with Mumbai and have core-banking facilities.

During the link failure, even accounts could not be opened, as the Mumbai server needs to record all the transactions.

?I could not get my cheque cleared due to the link failure which has become a regular feature in State Bank. This is disgusting because money becomes essential all the more during Diwali. We have guests with us and now will have to face an embarrassing situation,? said a customer.

The same situation prevailed even on Monday as transactions were affected due to intermittent link failure. The transactions were completed on Wednesday morning. But officials using the link are upset about the present working condition, which they felt are affecting the bank?s reputation.