Dholaguri (Golaghat), Nov. 28: The chief general manager of the State Bank of India's Northeast circle, P.V.S.L.N. Murty, today appealed to the management and owners of tea gardens in Assam to provide a secure 80-feet space and an electricity connection to enable the bank to install ATMs in the gardens.
"In order to free the tea garden workers from the hassle of remembering the PIN of their ATM cards, we are considering the option of introducing biometric ATMs in the gardens. Then cash can be withdrawn by just putting a finger on the scanner attached to the ATM," Murty said during the inauguration here this morning.
Dholaguri tea estate, owned by the ARIN Group, earned the rare distinction of being the first tea garden to have an ATM installed for its workers after demonetisation.
Agastya Panika, who has spent her life working at the estate, is apprehensive about the new system of withdrawing wages through an ATM. However, she was hopeful of becoming acquainted with the system as she waited for her turn to get her wages today.
Nearly 20km from the district headquarters and 280km from Guwahati, the tea estate has 1,365 workers, of whom 500 have opened accounts in the SBI's Golaghat branch.
"We have been planning to open bank accounts for our workers since February. A number of financial literacy programmes were also held in the tea garden. The process of opening the accounts for all the workers will be complete soon and we expect that they will get their respective ATM cards before their next payment date," said Rakhi Saikia, the director of the tea estate.
The tea estate pays its workers every fortnight and today's payment was made in cash, as the ATM cards are yet to arrive in the garden.
"The tea industry of the state, which consists of 780 gardens, needs nearly Rs 50 crore of cash to pay its workers on a weekly basis and security is a big concern. We need almost 1,000 ATMs for these gardens. Eighty per cent of these gardens have Internet connectivity and for the rest, we urged the banks to come up with various options like mobile ATMs and customer service points," Bidyananda Barkakoty, the vice-chairman of the Tea Board of India, told The Telegraph.
Labour and employment minister Pallab Lochan Das, Golaghat deputy commissioner Gaurav Bothra, Golaghat superintendent of police Manabendra Deb Rai, Golaghat deputy general manager, SBI, Bisweswar Halder, deputy general manager, SBI Jorhat module, N.K. Malviya, and area general manager, SBI, Kabita Das, were also present.
