GFC in India…are you kidding??

Last time I went to a nationalized bank in India was for an Audit assignment with PwC. They didn’t show me any paper for how the loan comes in and to where it is disbursed. I spent twice of the time I was supposed to spend in that assignment and still came home empty handed. The only solace was the same treatment encountered by my colleagues in other branches. Needless to say, we lost the assignment! I still wonder who would have been able to complete an audit assignment with a client like them. I was still content with my life. At least there wasn’t any fear of going to the same atmosphere again!

Unless of course in the summer of 2009, during my long enough trip in India, when my dad got so much used to me sitting and not doing anything at home, that he finally decided to give me some work. It all started when I offered to pick up Aryan (my nephew) from school ‘coz frankly I didn’t have anything better to do.
“Dad, can I go and pick up Aryan from School, it’s his birthday today so it would be exciting to pick him directly from the School (instead of the Bus Stop)”, I asked.
“What’s the point? You will do up-down instead he can come by School Bus itself as he does daily. It’ll be just waste of time and energy”, he encountered.
When all he wanted to say is, why do you want to waste money on petrol when we are already paying for his school bus? My dad is quick on putting money value to everything.
He continued, “If you’ve time, why don’t you go to the OBC (Oriental Bank of Commerce – another nationalized bank) and deposit the Service Tax.”
Well, that’s the primary reason why we never offer to do anything voluntarily in our house. Any stance on that will reveal that you have extra time and you are up for some work which wouldn’t have even existed at the first place.

This time it was Service Tax. Service tax is a tax payable by you if you are deemed to perform a service. For example, if you are a lawyer preparing a notice, an accountant filing a return, or a doctor giving a paracetamol, you have performed a service and must pay a tax for having done so. The government is not liable to pay service tax. This must be for the simple reason that the government doesn’t provide any service: electricity, water, primary education, basic health care, roads etc. And guess, that's all the more reason for the rest of us, who do provide some sort of service or the other, to make good the deficit.

However, this is easier said than done. So, here I was with the herculean task of facing a nationalized bank again in my life ‘coz, perhaps, only nationalized banks would accept your service tax. I approached one of my friends, who is an accountant, to help out. Alright, even I am an accountant by profession, but I feel that I should give others some chance to practically experience what they learnt through the books. He sent one of his staffers to a Gurgaon branch of OBC.
“Are you the service tax payer?” asked Aunty ji sitting on the other side of the table.
The staff guy admitted he wasn't; that he was paying it on behalf of a Client Sir. Aha, said Aunty ji, as if detecting a fundamental flaw in this argument.
“Client Sir has to come in person to pay his service tax”, demands Aunty ji. The staff guy explained that this would be difficult as Client Sir lives not in Gurgaon but in Delhi.
“DELHI??” said Aunty ji, making it sound like it is separated by the English Channel which can’t be crossed until a channel tunnel is built between the two places. “If Client Sir lives in Delhi (read: on that side of the English Channel), his service tax has to be paid there, and only there.”
“OK”, said the staff guy, “so give back Client Sir's cheque so that it can be deposited in Delhi.”
“Sorry, but the cheque which we cannot accept has already been accepted; here's an OBC bank draft instead”, said Aunty ji.

My dad had already asked me twice about the deposit of the service tax. Somehow, these things never skip my Dad’s mind even for one day. And he makes it a point to check every day he remembers it. Once, I accidentally told him that I have yet to get my graduation degree certificate from the University, and he constantly nagged me for two months until I took a leave from office and went to collect it. So, I couldn’t have afforded more delays and decided to go myself this time. The first Delhi OBC I went to didn't do service tax, or drafts, or something. The second one didn’t do something, or drafts, or service tax. Someone at the third OBC had heard a rumour that there was another OBC near Connaught Place which might do these things. So I went there. A collapsible gate with a narrow squeeze space greeted me. It could be due to the security reasons, I reasoned. Inside was a yelling, screaming riot.
“Bhai saab, why is there so much crowd? Is there a Bank run?” I asked.
“No, we are trying to put our service tax money in”, explained a kind rioter.
There were 14 counters. The first 13 were deserted. Behind the 14th sat a Sheila Dikshit lookalike, with her knitting kit placed conspicuously on her table, at whom the rioters waved cheques and bank drafts. Sheila ji ignored them all. After a while, she took out her tiffin and began to eat lunch. Aloo-Parantha and gobhi-mattar. I gave up, phoned my friend, who said he'd get his staff guy to pay the tax the next day. Which he did. Maybe he caught up Sheila ji in a gap between the gobhi-mattar and dessert.

Ohh, all this while I forgot to connect the title of this post to the story narrated. So, here’s the paragraph for that. After Global Financial Crises (GFC) had hit the world’s economy like a pandemic, a statement was issued by our finance minister that our nationalised banks are very safe unlike all those American and European banks and they’re not going to go belly up. The primary reason for GFC was the sub-prime lending. Our FM was confident that Indian economy is insulated from those global issues. To me, this statement was funny. I then thought that the poor chap is saying this only coz he is in the midst of a GFC, with global recession and a liquidity crunch like no one has seen since the Great Depression; and passing this statement is the only thing he can do with the available resources. The exercise proved to me that I was wrong. Our nationalised banks are as safe as an unopenable safe ever: far from giving away your money to sub-prime borrowers, they won't even let you put your money in!!