My First Day in Bank of India – Part 4

Bhadani's scrapbook 1974

Continuing from the previous post, I am speaking now about the first afternoon of my First Day as a Probationary Officer in Bank of India (26th February, 1974), Mishra jee started to tutor me in right earnest. He explained, "There are ordinary letters and there are registered letters. Mails meant for Regional Office and Head Office (except BDS and statements – while I could understand the meaning of statements, BDS was a new term) will have to be sent separately and such mails will come in closed covers from Agent’s chamber and you should never try to open the same, but put all envelopes in a big cover and get it gummed properly, etc., etc." I was listening with rapt attention like a student though in fact I was thinking that I should learn some new things as this appeared to be a very simple task and I had myself seen all these activities since childhood in my father’s office – only difference was that in Government Office, special stamps printed for the Government mails were used and the same had to be taken from Government Treasury while for the general public, different stamps were used which were sold at Post Offices. 

Anyway, after the lecture, Mishra jee told me to verify the address from the address book as the person who had originally done the job might have committed some mistake, and I as a checker was required to verify the same. In a way, in the hindsight, I may tell that Mishra jee, though a sub-staff, was telling me the concept of maker-checker. This was my first lesson in banking. There should be duel control over activities. At last, we came to balancing of stamps-on-hand,  cash and coins kept in the small box along with stamps. I found there was mistake of twenty paisa, short or more was beyond my comprehension that day, I do not remember exactly as the whole process was new for me. Now, to my utter dismay and confusion, I found checking despatch was not as easy as it had looked at the first sight! This made Mishra jee very restless and as Mr. Jugal Mehra had gone somewhere, he was feeling at his wit’s end. I, a Bachelor of Commerce with distinctions in Economics and Auditing (of Patna College, Patna University) was well aware that as far as public funds and custodial funds are concerned, one should never fudge with the accounts; and so compensating with my own twenty paisa or Mishra jee’s twenty paisa or removing the same from the box never occurred to me. But, this was a development for which my schooling had not provided me any answer. Mishra jee took me along with all the mails, registers (one for ordinary post and the other for registered mails) and the box to Mr. Motil Lal Gupta who was just sitting upstairs above the basement. Mr. Gupta tuned out to very co-operative and helpful. He himself checked the day’s despatch, stamps pasted on envelopes, etc., verified the stamps-on-hand, counted the cash and coins in the box. but still the difference of twenty paisa persisted. The branch was doing this balancing almost on day-to-day basis, and so he asked me to check casting of previous day. Casting was not heard by me, and so I was staring at him. He understood my predicament, and told, “You total for the previous day.” I did but it was perfect. He asked me to continue to do for earlier days and ultimately a mistake in casting was found for a day. He found that on that particular day, another Officer (not Mr. Jugal Mehra, the Special Assistant) had checked and initialed the registers and balancing summary. Though Mr. Gupta was a clerk, he was General Secretary of staff unions (which I learnt later on is called award staff union due to reasons which I don’t want to dwell upon here). He was a powerful “entity” of that time; and he called the officer concerned with whom I too became friendly very soon. His name was Mr. Rohatagi; and he was from Panipat and used to commute daily from Panipat to Delhi. Mr. Moti Lal Gupta told him so many things in Punjabi which I could not perfectly follow and a voucher was prepared for twenty paisa which was signed by that Officer, he took it to the Agent (Branch Head was called Agent in early 1970s), and came out within minutes after obtaining Agent’s signature on the voucher. So, the second, third and the fourth lessons learnt were – 1) casting should be perfect (that is, in other words, bank’s work requires utmost accuracy in everything not in casting alone); 2) and if there is difference in books of accounts and other similar records of the bank, thorough checking should be done; and 3) any deviation/s should be brought to the notice of the competent authority (in this instance, the Branch Head), and his confirmation and ratification should be obtained. 

I may add that over a period of time, dilutions have been taken place in several cardinal banking principles or for that matter in many activities of public affairs in India, and results are obvious. I felt that Mishraj ee was visibly feeling triumphant at having nailed an officer (Mr. Rohatgi), and probably settling scores for turning down his requests for signing of overtime sheets by Mr. Rohatagi, at some point of time. But, this is merely a conjecture on my part.

To-day or tomorrow, I will continue with my experience of my first day in Bank of India, and it will be last part for this "series" for the First Day. In next couple of posts, I will speak about my sojourn in Delhi till October 1974 (before I was shifted to Ludhiana Branch by Bank of India) including one or two posts covering First & Second Phase of Training (as called by Bank of India at time for Probationary Officers) at Bank's in-house training facility in Bombay (now Mumbai). Thanks. 

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