By Our Reporter
Shillong: The Reserve Bank of India will be setting up its Shillong office shortly. Informing this, the General Manager, RBI, Department of Expenditure & Budgetary Control, P Shyam Sundar said, “We are looking for office space but find it difficult to locate a proper building. However we will be setting up office near the Fruit Gardens, Dhankheti.
The Government has assured us of land at Mawdiangdiang but at the moment the area is not yet developed and it would be too far for the Bank to be located at the New Shillong township.
The Shillong RBI office will not be handling cash transactions at the moment. Its primary task for now would be to monitor the function of nationalized banks in the State such as borrower profiles and lending patterns of banks and to ensure that they maintain a decent credit-deposit ratio.
When told that traders especially petty shopkeepers find it very difficult to get coins on a daily basis to pay the customers, Mr Shyam Sundar said, “Coins are a problem everywhere because people hoard them. Paper money like one rupee notes have become too expensive to produce. It costs at least Rs 3. 75 to produce a one rupee note.”
Mr Sundar, however, stated that the RBI is looking at the option of producing plastic money for smaller denominations. He said that the RBI Shillong office is expected to function within the month of March or early April.