Migrants, differently abled rely on these volunteers

When a team of volunteers landed up at one of the banks in the city, they realised that there were way too many volunteers than the place needed. However, at some other branch, there were migrant workers and those who aren’t used to filling up forms struggling to cope with the paper work. To streamline the volunteering efforts, the group of volunteers will now be meeting the requirements of the crowd at the State Bank of India branches, where there is maximum crowd. With a swelling number of close to a hundred volunteers, the group now comprises school and college students and working professionals who will undertake coordinated efforts to hasten bank procedures. 

Ananthavaradarajan N, and his friend Senthil Nayagam—both working professionals—who spent the whole of last Sunday at the ICF branch say that while the procedures are not complicated, the long line and repeated enquiries take up most of the time for customers. Ananthavaradarajan says, “There are many senior citizens and migrant workers who are not used to filling up forms. Similarly, there are many diffabled persons as well. The line splits into many queues and there is utter chaos. We collected the documents from them and explained the procedure to them. Sometimes, they repeat the questions and the bank officials have no time to answer them again. This is where volunteers like us can help.” Senthil adds that the streamlining would also help officials at the bank, who are wary about too many volunteers, and want to avoid overlapping initiatives. The volunteers would carry ID cards and would be briefed by the officials before the operations begin every day.

He adds, “The workers, mostly from Odisha, Jharkhand and Bihar can only communicate a little in Hindi and we are providing them with information on the required documents. Some of them can be very unreasonable.”

The two have been visiting branches across the city to check on the requirements for volunteers. 

On Tuesday, Edward, another working professional to volunteer on Wednesday and six more for the coming days, out of 26 callers who also wanted to know about stipend and lunch arrangements. He says, “Two of them would be visiting the branches in Mylapore and Valasaravakkam. We are reaching out to college students familiar with the banking rules, preferably those pursuing B Com.”