. the premises department of the bank also has a manual for all procurement. the cell, during the course of the vigilance awareness week 2017, launched a separate site on our intranet site ( called the “ ekp ” ) where all vigilance related information is available in one place. in march 2017, the cell organised a training programme at the college of agricultural banking ( cab ), pune, wherein the chief technical examiner of the commission addressed page 9 of 11 the officers of the bank dealing with procurement activities and provided them with valuable tips on addressing vigilance issues that arise during the process of procurement. another training programme for the senior officers of the bank was organised in september 2017 at the cbi academy in ghaziabad to sensitise officers on the investigative aspects of vigilance. a workshop on ‘ principles of procurement and related case studies ’ was recently conducted at mumbai for the benefit of officers dealing with procurement. further, a video conference was held to enhance awareness and to review the status of implementation of e - tendering. an important feature of preventive vigilance at the bank is internal governance, i. e., involvement of employees themselves for disciplining each other. for instance, as a step towards further strengthening preventive vigilance in the area of procurement, the bank has introduced the concept of “ integrity pact ” ( ip ) for large value procurement ( exceeding rs. 5 crores ) and the pact is overseen by an independent external monitor ( iem ) appointed by the bank with the concurrence of the commission. the integrity pact ( ip ) is an agreement between the prospective bidder ( vendor ) and the buyer not to resort to any corrupt practices in any stage of the contract. the pact between the vendor and the buyer involves their primarily agreeing to refrain from bribery, collusion, etc., during the entire process of the contract. the independent external monitor independently reviews whether and to what extent parties to the pact have complied with their obligations under the pact. in case of a suspicion, the iems examine all complaints received for breach of pact and furnish their views to the chief executive of the organisation or directly forward the findings to the cvo and the commission. several other measures are also aimed at instilling strong internal governance. to ease lodging of vigilance related complaints, the name, address, telephone / fax number and e - mail address of the cvo is displayed on the website of the bank

the country. some of the bcs in the past have abused the trust placed in them by the banking system and defrauded their customers. as bcs generally serve a less ‘ financially literate ’ population, it is important that their activities are brought under closer scrutiny by the banks. the banks have to take ownership of bcs that they employ and also put in place appropriate grievance redressal mechanism for cases involving them. ( ii ) msmes : rbi has recently set out guidelines on ‘ framework for revival and rehabilitation of micro, small and medium enterprises ’ for early resolution of stress in the accounts of msmes, following an ordinance by government of india. under this framework, the revival and rehabilitation of msme units having loan limits up to rs. 25 crore is envisaged. further, with a view to provide timely financial support to msmes facing financial difficulties during their life cycle, rbi had advised the banks to review their existing lending policies and incorporating therein, among others, provisions for sanctioning of standby credit facility in case of term loans, additional working capital limits, mid term review of regular working capital limits, and timelines for credit decisions. b. synergizing the roles of pccos and internal banking ombudsmen ( ibos ) in the banks : as i understand the customer grievance redressal architecture in the banking sector suffers from certain structural inconsistencies. i am compelled to make this statement as i see scope for greater role clarity and synergy in how the pccos & the ibos in the banks operate. i believe the pccos which act as bcsbi ’ s nodal point of contact with the member banks and serve as extended arms of bcsbi for monitoring implementation of codes in the banks at all levels must play a more preventive role. for that to happen, the pcco needs to be suitably senior in hierarchy with reporting lines to the ceo / customer service committee of the board. i understand, however, that currently this is not uniformly so. similarly, the office of the internal banking ombudsman which has been in place in the banks for almost last two years does not seem to have become an effective forum. our objective in institutionalizing the office of ibo was to ensure resolution of a majority of the complaints at the level of bank itself. office of ibo was envisaged as the ultimate authority to which all unresolved / partially resolved complaints were to be