SRINAGAR: The premier financial institution of the state, The Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd., which boasts off its customer-friendly policies has its Hazratbal branch resorting to fraudulent practices to make profits. In the name of service charge, the bank is busily extorting money from the gullible students who visit the banks fee collection counter located within the Kashmir University campus for payment of various kinds of fee to the University such as examination.
In gross violation to the norms, the bank charges Rs 10 as surplus amount on each pay-in slip every time a candidate is required to pay fee of some kind to the university. Why should the bank not charge the surplus amount, Manager of the branch, Fayaz Ahmad told a student, Farooq Ahmad who complained to him after the clerk at the counter charged him an extra Rs 20 for the examination fee.
The manager told the student that the extra charge was in lieu of the services his bank gave to the university.
When the student told the manager that bank should levy the service charge on the university not on poor students, the manager immediately ordered a refund to the student.
The refund, thus, raises a question whether the practice adopted by the branch is legitimate at all.
Another student who had deposited his fee at a different branch said that he was not charged with any surplus amount.
While taking a serious not of the practice after Kashmir Observer brought it in his notice, Controller of the Examination, Kashmir University, Abdul Salam Bhat described it a fraud that should be immediately put to a halt. Im surprised how a bank can charge extra money from any student in such fraudulent manner, he said. Ill have to talk to the Registrar as to what has led to such a serious irregularity.
Bhat said that hell take up the matter with the Vice-Chancellor and get an update on the issue.
Vice-Chancellor Kashmir University, Prof. Dr. Khursheed Iqbal Andrabi, ensured that hell take the matter up with the concerned authorities at the earliest.
Pertinently some 15,000 students are currently studying at Kashmir University and if a student is charged at an average Rs. 40 for payments of various kinds to the university, it amasses to Rs. 6 Lakh a session.
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