Minimum Balance Penalty: After the news of government banks earning thousands of crores by imposing minimum balance penalty came out, this issue reached the Parliament and questions started being asked from the government…
Minimum Balance Penalty: The issue of government banks charging penalty for not maintaining minimum balance has reached the Parliament. Questions were asked to the government in Rajya Sabha regarding this issue. However, the government says that banks do not charge such penalty from the poor and there is no plan to charge penalty in future.
Questions asked to the government in Rajya Sabha
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was answering questions related to minimum balance penalty in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. She was asked whether government banks are charging penalty from the poor for not maintaining minimum balance and earning huge profits. In response, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that banks do not charge penalty on the accounts of the poor.
These people do not need minimum balance
He said that people do not need to maintain minimum balance in case of Jan Dhan Account or Basic Savings Account. Banks do not charge penalty even if there is zero balance in the bank account opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. Similarly, penalty is not charged if there is zero balance in basic savings account also. The Finance Minister said that banks charge minimum balance penalty only in case of those savings accounts in which there is a condition of keeping minimum amount.
The government had told this figure
Last month, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary had told in Parliament that government banks have earned about Rs 8,500 crore from minimum balance penalty in the last five years. Government banks together had earned Rs 2,331 crore from minimum bank balance penalty in the last financial year alone. After this figure came out, many questions started being raised from the government.
SBI does not charge penalty
There are currently 12 government banks working in the country. The largest among them, State Bank of India, has already stopped charging minimum balance penalty. State Bank of India last charged penalty from customers for not maintaining minimum balance in 2019-20. SBI stopped charging penalty for minimum balance after that. That is, the data of revenue from penalty in recent years is of the remaining 11 government banks.
