SHILLONG: A labourer from Laitkor Mawrie was turned away by a state-owned bank on Tuesday for possessing “dirty” documents.
Asuk Marbaniang, who was waiting in the queue since morning to withdraw the Rs 1,000 central benefit from Meghalaya Rural Bank at Ksehbilat in Laitkor, was told by one of the tellers that his documents for Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana were “too dirty to be accepted”.
“A person at the counter told me to go back as the documents were dirty. I told her that the papers fell down but she did not pay heed,” told a helpless Marbaniang to The Shillong Times outside the bank.
The 61-year-old labourer showed the stapled documents which otherwise looked clean. The back of the last sheet of paper was, however, soiled.
When the manager of the branch was apprised of the man’s plight, he said he was unaware of it and requested the reporter to send the aggrieved person to his office.
At the intervention of The Shillong Times, Marbaniang finally got his money from the manager but the teller concerned continued to defend her behaviour.
When asked why she had turned Marbaniang away, she said, “How can we accept documents which are not clean?” When she was told that it was her duty to help people from rural areas, she retorted, “People from villages are smart enough to understand.”
Marbaniang said he had stood in the queue the entire day on Monday and came back on Tuesday.
