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SBI has added ST Category Option After Tribal Christians’ issues were raised. This has come as a big relief for the Christians who were protesting against discrimination.
The Arunachal Christian Forum had made a caste based allegation against SBI. The forum blamed SBI over an alleged issue in the bank’s digital banking and KYC systems, claiming that Christians belonging to Scheduled Tribes (STs) in Arunachal Pradesh were being automatically classified under the “General” category.
The forum had written to the SBI Regional Manager in Itanagar, stating that members of constitutionally recognised Scheduled Tribes in the state were facing difficulties while opening bank accounts or updating their KYC details through the SBI YONO application and other digital banking platforms.
According to the forum, when a customer selected “Christian” as their religion in SBI’s banking applications, the system did not allow them to select the Scheduled Tribe category. Instead, the customer was directed to the “General” category.
The forum described the classification as discriminatory. It argued that being a Christian does not automatically mean that a person belonging to a notified Scheduled Tribe loses their ST status.
The organisation said the Scheduled Tribes Order, 1950 does not provide for a religion-based exclusion under which a member of a notified Scheduled Tribe would cease to be an ST merely because they follow Christianity.
The forum further argued that SBI was not the competent authority to remove a person’s tribal status when the customer possesses a valid ST certificate. It said the bank should not automatically classify a tribal Christian customer under the General category only on the basis of the religion declared by the customer.
The organisation urged SBI to examine and correct its software systems so that religion and Scheduled Tribe status were not treated as mutually exclusive categories. It also asked the bank to ensure that customers belonging to recognised ST communities can correctly record both their religion and tribal status in its banking and KYC systems.
