A meeting to create awareness about banking consumer protection and grievance redressal mechanism available under the Reserve Bank-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme (RBIOS) 2021 was organised by the Office of Reserve Bank Integrated Ombudsman, Jammu on June 27 in Kargil.

Deputy Commissioner, Kargil, Santosh Sukhadeve appreciated the efforts of the RBI Ombudsman in reaching out to Kargil with the mission of creating awareness and also listening to the grievances of the masses. He exhorted people to make the best use of this opportunity and express their grievances in a free and fair manner.

He said that such a consumer-centric activity had not been conducted in the district for a long time and commended the efforts being made by RBI in safeguarding the rights of banking consumers through various measures including literacy campaigns being run by the RBI through various media.

Ombudsman, RBI Jammu, Ramesh Chand highlighted the customer-centric features of the RBIOS-2021, which aims to address the grievances of consumers against regulated entities such as banks, NBFCs and payment service participants, etc. by adopting the ‘One Nation One Ombudsman’ approach. He explained various initiatives being undertaken by the Reserve Bank to protect and safeguard customer rights and the manner of functioning of the Office of Ombudsman.

 He cautioned the participants about the use of different innovative methods of digital fraud by the fraudsters and appealed to the participants to stay active in the dangers these miscreants pose to people. The Ombudsman encouraged the participants to come forward with their grievances.

Deputy Ombudsman, RBI Jammu, Anil Kumar Reshi discussed all aspects of complaint management by RBI and various methods of lodging complaints. He also discussed at length, various types of modus-operandi used by the fraudsters in duping the innocent people of their hard-earned money while highlighting various measures and cautions that need to be observed by the banking consumers.

He also shared some examples of cases being dealt with by the office for more clarity to the participants. He advised all the participants to visit the RBI website https://cms.rbi.org.in for further details on filling out complaints etc.

More than 225 customers of regulated entities i.e. banks, Non-Banking Financial Companies, and Pre-paid Instruments-wallet; members of the local Traders Association; Hoteliers Association and other associations; senior officials of banks, and branch heads of Kargil district attended the meeting.

The meeting was concluded with an interactive session, wherein the participants raised their grievances and doubts related to a deficiency in banking services and filing of complaints. A few complaints were also redressed on the spot during the meeting.