This is a bizarre situation. For saving cost, the then Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram instructed the authorities of National Savings Institute to prune their staff handling PPF commission claims at their Regional offices all over the country, w.e.f. 1.6.04. This activity was transferred to all the accounts offices (banks and post offices) who are handling the work of accepting deposits and issuing of the pass books and certificates. This was indeed a wise decision.
However — At the Mumbai office, there was a huge backlog of pending bills. The office of the Regional Director decided not to clear this backlog because it suspected (?) that some of such bills were found to be of fraudulent nature. The following is their reply related with our RTI application dt 22.12.2008 vide A1/Admn/2008/RTI – 1366 dt 19/1/2009 against our RTI application dt 22.12.2008
Reply : 12,861.
Reply : `23,48,000,00.
Reply : Yes.
Reply : Not.
Reply : Not pertaining to this office.
Reply : Not pertaining to this office.
Reply : No.
Reply : No such case lies pending with this office.
You may note that this reply accepts that :
In any case, the entire flock of sheep cannot be slaughtered just because of a few black sheep. A large number of honest agents cannot be made to suffer just because it is suspected that a few of them are fraudulent. It is the duty of the authority to search for and nail the black ones. What have they done?
Now comes a more bizarre situation. Through a notice RDNSI/MUM/PPF/RNR-Claims/2016/5/778, sent to all the related agents, the regional director NSI has admitted that his office, under the instruction from Ministry of Finance, had tried to get the data related with the claims from the Banks/Post Offices but did not succeed. Therefore, he is giving an opportunity to the agents to pursue the matter with the Bank/post office from where verification report is required. In case the report/reply is not received by his office within stipulated period of 45 days, the claim will be finally filed and treated as rejected.
If the director, who has appointed these entities to act on his behalf for conducting some of the activities against a fee, cannot obtain the required information, how can an agent, procure this information? And that too at a time when the banks/post offices are extremely busy in implementing the demonetization drive of Mr. Modi.
It is claimed that in deserving cases, where the agent was found to be under an undue financial stress, payments have been made on humanitarian grounds. We have been told many of such payments were made to keep agitated agents silent and not on humanitarian grounds.
We strongly feel that the decision to withhold the commission is arbitrary, unreasonable, and violative of natural justice. This is a classic case of abdication of delegated powers. It is one of the basic duties of the Commissioner of National Savings Institute to abide by the contract between his office and his agent. Under no situation the contract can be breached by him, whatever the difficulties.
An agency is a contract between the Institution and the agent. If an agent has procured business for the organization without violating any terms and conditions stipulated in the contract or any provision of any law of the country, he is entitled to get the payment of his commission within a reasonable time
Why did the NSI not take any action whatsoever since 1.6.04? Is the NSI taking advantage of the demonitisation drive to convert its illegal money into legal?
Never in the annals of investing history, has such a problem arisen and left unresolved.
Some great visionary had created the basic concept of Small Savings. He knew that small contributions from a large number of small persons have a greater impact on the economics of the nation than large contributions from a few. Such small persons can be approached only by the agents. It is hoped that the Small Savings movement does not get a further setback because of such armchair interest shown by the office of the Commissioner.
We sincerely hope that the authorities will look into this problem more deeply for slaughtering the black sheep and rewarding the white ones.
The authors may be contacted at wonderlandconsultants@yahoo.com
