If you are a common man and earn just a meager amount which is hardly enough for your livelihood, you would definitely not believe your eyes if one day, your bank account is credited with such a huge sum of cash that you neither saw nor dreamed of ever in the whole lifetime! Isn’t it? The same happened with Balwinder Singh, a taxi driver by profession!
There was no limit of his amazement and shock when he came to know that a whopping amount of Rs 98,05,95,12,231 was credited on 4th November to his State Bank of Patiala account. Oh My God! Almost Rs 9,806 crore! That’s indeed a very big sum even for the ones belonging to upper class and he’s simply a taxi driver; just think about his mental state on finding this amount in his bank account.
Nevertheless, sadly enough, his happiness and celebration couldn’t last for long as the very next day, all the money had been debited from his account. This is how Balwinder depicts the whole incident,
“I made many rounds of the bank, but nobody listened to me. Instead they kept my passbook with them on November 7, and issued a new passbook without the gigantic entry.”
He further said,
“I had opened the account under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY). My balance usually is around Rs 3,000.”
Ravinder Kumar, the branch manager didn’t reveal any information with regard to this. As per him, “An investigation by income tax (I-T) officials is on.”
Nevertheless, Sandeep Garg, the lead bank manager, explained,
“The account holder happens to be a designated vendor for the bank. While passing a credit entry of Rs 200, an assistant manager (accounts) wrongly inserted the bank’s 11-digit internal Banking General Ledger account number in the amount column. The mistake was noticed the next day, following which the entry was reversed.”
The matter was confirmed by Bhupinder Singh Rai, Deputy Commissioner. According to an officer, there was an irresponsible action on the part of bank officials on several counts. In the words of the official who didn’t want to reveal identity,
“Instead of telling the account holder themselves, they did even attend to him when he visited the branch.”
The probe into the matter was carried out till midnight by a team led by Pritpal Singh, assistant commissioner. Income tax officials from Patiala, Barnala and Sangrur were also a part of the team.
If bank officials are guilty in this case, they have definitely defamed their repute since such a big mistake is not acceptable on the part of a reputed bank.
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