Security At ATM or Security Of All Indians

After the incident of a lady drawing cash from ATM attacked by miscreant in Bangalore, police has given instruction to bankers either to provide security guard, alarm bell and CCTV at each ATM or they will close the ATM shutters. It is true that providing Armed Guard at ATM or keeping CCTV facility or alarm bell in ATM may provide safety to some extent.

But the root causes of such type of incidents lie in not only absence of security guard at ATM but also in several other factors.

One of the key factors is total lawlessness in the country. People do not want to lodge even FIR at police station on any criminal act committed by criminals. Rather people of India hate police and abuse police for providing protections to criminals and torturing innocent.  On the contrary criminals do not fear police and do not fear judiciary because they know the art of managing the police or court cases in their favour. They know how to motivate police force and how to motivate judges through their advocates or any other middleman in courts. 

This is why Criminals can attack not only in ATM, they can loot any branch anywhere in India irrespective of the fact it is manned or unmanned by security guard. There are hundreds of instances where branches or cash van secured by number of security guards have been looted in broad daylight and police fails to even catch them in many cases of dacoity and loot.  Not only banks or ATM, even any house situated in any corner of the country are subject to risk of attack from criminals and terrorist and naxals. In such position, it will be better on the part of Bangalore police to demand provision of security guard, CCTV and alarm bell in every home, every office and every nook and corner of the country.

Secondly, in our country, quality of majority of security guards provided at bank’s branches or in ATM is also questionable. Such guards are neither physically fit, nor adequately trained and nor bold and competent enough to cope with criminal attacks. They simply sit idly outside ATM and any street boy can push him away to do what he or she likes to do.

Thirdly even bank management do not think it necessary to provide security guards even in all Branches dealing in cash , not to speak of ATM where cash is secured to a great extent in comparison to open cash at branches. Besides, bank management do not have enough capacity to spend on security. They do not have enough manpower to provide for operation in branches. They open the branches without adequate manpower and adequate infrastructure. This is because they do not have any vision how to secure their bank and their workforce who are prone to risk of criminal attacks at many branches. They do not bother even if such bank officials indulge in bad lending to get rid of local musclemen or powerful politicians. 

Bank managements  are simply opening branches after branches and ATM after ATM  and there is mad rush opening of new  branches and new ATM simply to please ministers .They never think it wise to recruit enough strong guards and enough manpower to man the branches they open. Further even if they decide to recruit manpower for any post, they have to oblige various Netas, castes, communities, government officials and other VIPs in the matter of all types of recruitment.

Lastly even rulers of this countrydo not want to build pressure on bank management to properly plan their manpower and other related infrastructure before branch expansion and enlargement of ATM network in the country. Government of India should formulate branch and ATM expansion plan to stop mad rush and reckless expansion undertaken by different banks to compete with each other but at the cost of public money and jeopardizing the interest of customers and investors. 

Finance Minister has to stop advising banks to open thousands of branches and ATM in short span of time without giving them enough time to manage the affairs in right ad effective way. They have to stop allotting unachievable and sky touching targets to bankers and they have to stop corruption in all recruitment, promotions and transfers and so on. Security at ATM cannot and should not be considered in isolation. Broad outlook with long term vision has to be in place to secure all persons and all banks and all ATMs and all houses.

As a matter of fact if police forces are active all the 24 hours in a day there is no possibility or rare possibility of criminals attacking innocent people in ATM or elsewhere. Netas have to stop their habit of interfering in police matters and stop using all incidents for vote bank. Politicians have to stop putting wrong and baseless allegations against police. Politicians have to stop accusing police of false encounters for political gain. Politicians have to stop speak openly against police force to stop demoralization of police forces. If there is any case of real injustice by police with any person , they should learn the habit of lodging their grievance in writing with some other forum or grievance redressal organization. This culture has to be inculcated in all offices and in all departments.

Banks rushing to beef up security-Busines Line

G. NAGA SRIDHAR

HYDERABAD, NOV. 25:  

Banks are now busy reviewing the security arrangements at their ATMs in the wake of the attack on a customer in Bangalore last week.

Till recently, the decision to post a guard at an ATM depended on a bank’s perception about the risks to its assets/cash in that location.

“But now, we need to look for new guidelines as the customers also needed to be protected,” M. Bhagavantha Rao, Managing Director, State Bank of Hyderabad, told Business Line here. The bank is in the process of roping in more security agencies to get guards posted at all its ATMs across States.

State Bank of India, which has the largest network of ATMs, is also working on the same.

“Actually, all our off-site ATMs have got security. However, sometimes, the guards could be absent. We are conducting meetings with security service providers to ensure continuous presence of guards,” C. R. Sasikumar, Chief General Manager, SBI, said.

The first priority for banks, however, is to arrange for guards at ATMs in Bangalore as the State Government has ordered shutdown of unmanned ATMs. Already, over 700 ATMs have been shutdown by the police as banks failed to post guards.

COST MATTERS

According to an official of a leading private bank, which has a number of unmanned off-site ATMs, banks should not be made liable for the entire security.

“There is a cost angle to it, as each ATM will need three guards. If we are doing everything, then what are the police for? The cost will ultimately be passed on to customers,” he said.

Meanwhile, the customers, especially women, are a worried lot. As some banks have more than one ATM in the same kiosk, there is little privacy and one cannot be sure of the intention of the other person in the room, said P. Malathi, a Polaris employee, after coming out of an Axis Bank ATM here.

DISCIPLINE NEEDED

The mere presence of security is not enough; proper discipline must be ensured, said P. Raghu, a customer. “We often come across guards who are drunk or asleep.’’

According to Reserve Bank of India data, there were 1.14 lakh ATMs in the country as on March 2013, a 19.2 per cent growth over the previous year.

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