An association of bank officers on Saturday criticised Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allegedly rebuking State Bank of India Chair...
An association of bank officers on Saturday criticised Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for allegedly rebuking State Bank of India Chairperson Rajnish Kumar on a public forum, but soon withdrew its statement. In its original statement, the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation had called Sitharaman’s attack on India’s largest bank “unsavoury”.
The association’s criticism was for a purported audio clip of Sitharaman at an event last month, which has been widely shared on social media, The Indian Express reported. The finance minister can be heard calling the country’s largest state-run lender “heartless” and “inefficient” as bank accounts of some 2.5 lakh tea garden workers in Assam were not functional. Scroll.in could not independently verify the authenticity of the clip.
Sitharaman allegedly made the comments at a financial inclusion outreach programme in Guwahati on February 27. Kumar, Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and several senior bureaucrats from the state and the Centre were present at the event.
In the audio clip, an SBI officer tells Sitharaman that the bank needed clearance from the Reserve Bank of India to make the accounts of tea garden workers functional, and that it could be done within a week.
“Don’t tire me out...don’t tire me out,” the finance minister purportedly says in response. “SBI chairman you will...
