The Hindu Business Line : Coins turn dead weight for some banks

LOOK at how the much sought-after money becomes a burden for some of the banks such as Dhanalakshmi and Vijaya, which provide services to major pilgrim centres such as Sabarimala and Chottanikkara.

They seem to be finding it difficult to handle the coins running into several tonnes when it lands up in their branches. Besides entailing losses in handling these heavy bags of coins, it also becomes difficult to store, and above all, to dispose.

For Dhanalashmi Bank, which takes care of the cash offerings at the Lord Ayyappa temple at Sabarimala, it has become a Herculean task. During the last pilgrim season, the bank has received coins worth Rs 5.94 crore of various denominations.

While the bank's job is made easier by the Travancore Devaswom Board (TDB) staff, as segregation of these coins and packing them in bags is done by them, this job at Chottanikara has to be done by Vijaya Bank. The bank has to spend around Rs 50,000 for segregating coins amounting to Rs 25 lakh it had received from the temple after the Sabarimala pilgrimage season, packing and transporting it to the godown at some 50 km away.

But, when compared to this, the collection at Sabarimala is huge and around 10 per cent of the total offerings made in to the "hundis" are coins.

The weight of the bags depending upon the denomination of the coins varied from 8 kg to 18 kg. Thus, tonnes of coins have to be shifted from Sabarimala hilltop to its base at Pampa and then to different branches as far as in Tamil Nadu where storage space is available, a senior Bank official told Business Line. The bank has to spend a substantial sum towards transportation. There are no takers for it despite being offered at 1.5 per cent discount.

Besides, occupying large space, it has become dead money for the bank branches. According to him coins worth around Rs 40 to Rs 50 crore are lying in different branches of Dhanalakshmi Bank depriving the bank of any return. However, the Bank management is happy as all the burdens and the losses are outweighed by the publicity it gets as the "Bank of Lord Ayyappa".

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