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Shifting of banks affect farmers, local trade
FIKKAL, ILAM, OCT 10 - Rastriya Banijya Bank (RBB) and Agriculture Development Bank (ADB/N) has shifted away their branches from Fikkal, the business and industrial centre of the eastern district of Ilam, badly hitting small farmers and traders of the area.
Both the banks have cited poor security condition as a major reason for shifting away of their branches. While RBB has shifted its Fikkal office to Budhabare that lies 4 km away from Fikkal, ADB/N has merged Fikkal branch with its branch located in the district headquarter.
"The branches have been shifted due to security reasons as the local police force that patrol the area during the day started spending night out of the market," said Bhupendra Nath Sharma, manager of ADB/N Fikkal office.
Farmers of the area lament that the merger and shifting away of banks’ branch have affected their dealings with the banks. From Fikkal, these banks had been serving people of over 23 Village Development Committees (VDCs) of a total of 47 VDCs of the district.
"Shifting away of branches has posed difficulty to farmers of over half of the VDCs of the district," said Prabhakar Pradhan, a local trader. Fikkal is a base for cash-crop industries and most of the farmers depend on banks for their daily transactions and businesses.
"Now farmers are required to travel to district headquarter, 42 km away from Fikkal, to pay even a small interest of Rs 200 of their loans and undertake other banking transactions," he said.
This has mostly hit transactions of farmers pursuing cash crops like tea, cardamom, cheese, dairy production, ginger and broom, among others, as they deal with the banks on the daily basis.
Being close to the Indian border, Indian currency too is used widely in the local market and converting it back into Nepali currency has become a problem due to the lack of banking services, said local traders.
"Now, we need to spend two days to deal with banks which otherwise used to be completed just within a couple of hours," said Dharma Gautam of Shree-Antu VDC, who walks three hours to Fikkal for business.
Most importantly, both ADB/N and RBB branches had been working in close coordination in the past to serve local farmers and traders. "However, following the shifting of the branches, the coordination has broke down," said Sharma.
According to him, the banks would have continued its services from Fikkal had the security condition improved. "But, even the police force on duty in Fikkal market spend their nights away in Budhabare and the district headquarter," he added.
Security condition in Fikkal is so poor that other government offices such as Nepal Telecommunications and Nepal Electricity Authority could also be shifted to the district headquarter, said a senior government official.Posted on: 2003-10-09 10:49
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