RBI panel to benchmark banks' level of services

The Reserve Bank of India has set up a Committee on Procedures and Performance Audit on Public Services in order to benchmark the current level of its services rendered to the public.

The Committee, among others, will advise the RBI on improving the quality of its services to common people and institutions and to benchmark such services in terms of quality of timeliness. It will initially function for a period of one year from January 1, 2004.

It will review the existing policies and procedures followed by the RBI with a view to rationalising and simplifying them and suggest appropriate incentives to facilitate changes on an ongoing basis.

The Committee will also undertake performance audit on public services and regulatory clearances in the central bank.

The Committee, which is headed by S S Tarapore, chairman, Discount Finance House of India Ltd, will co-ordinate with the Ad-hoc committees on customer services of banks and consider and make recommendations on the suggestions made by these committees.

The members of the Committee are : M G Bhide, director, Crisil, H N Sinor, chief executive, Indian Banks' Association, C B Bhave, managing director, National Securities Depository Ltd, and M M Chitale, chartered accountant.

Meanwhile, the RBI has also constituted an Advisory Committee on Flow of Credit to Agriculture and Related Activities from the Banking System and a Working Group on Flow of Credit to the Small Scale Industry Sector. Both the panels have been set up in terms of the Mid-term review of the Monetary and Credit Policy for 2003-04.

The main terms of reference of the Committee include suggesting measures to reduce the rate of interest on agriculture credit given by banks, to study the role and effectiveness of RIDF mechanism, to identify impediments in the flow of credit to the disadvantaged sections.