Mangaluru : Banks posting officials who do not know Kannada to rural branches hampering implementation of government programmes echoed in the general body meeting of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat for the second consecutive time with the council deciding to call a meeting of top bank officials to address the issue.

After members complained about it, Meenakshi Shantigodu, president of the panchayat, said that a meeting of general managers or deputy general managers of banks in the district would be called soon to find the solution.

A senior member Tungappa Bangera pointed out that erstwhile Dakshina Kannada gave birth to five national-level banks of which four have been nationalised. Banking activities in the district have a history of more than a century since when they thrived. But now many a government programmes were not reaching the deserving people, through banks. It was because many bank managers and officials posted in rural and semi urban branches did not know Kannada. They are also not keen on learning Kannada. Such officials hailing from other States did not take interest in the implementation of government programmes. If banks posted officials who know Kannada, they can easily communicate with the local people. Now, local people have not been able to talk to the officials properly. It is a tragedy in the district having a history of banking activities.

Mr. Bangera said that people recently locked a branch of the nationalised bank in Punjalkatte on the same issue. But soon after this incident, the bank posted officials who know Kannada.

A former president of the panchayat and now member K.P. Sucharitha Shetty alleged that implementing the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana in the district was not at the expected level as banks were not supporting it. At one point, he alleged that many banks in rural areas were harassing customers by demanding various documents at various stages making customers run from pillar to post.

Another former president of the panchayat Koragappa Naik and former vice-president of the panchayat Dharanendra Kumar also joined the debate stating that many branches have officials knowing only English and Hindi and not Kannada.

They said that though the issue was discussed in the last general body meeting of the panchayat, it remained so without solution.

Raghav V. Yajamanya, Lead District Chief Manager, told the meeting that he had written to banks drawing attention to the concerns expressed by the members in the last meeting. He had instructed banks to conduct training classes in Kannada for branch heads and motivate staff to learn Kannada.