Shift APGVB headquarters to State, demands FDNA

Visakhapatnam: The Forum for Development of North Andhra (FDNA) has demanded that the Central government shift the headquarters of Andhra Pradesh Grameena Vikas Bank (APGVB) from Warangal to Andhra Pradesh.Forum general secretary A Aja Sarma in a letter to the Union Finance Minister on Wednesday informed that the APGVB covers 19 districts of Telangana State and three districts namely Srikakulam, Vizianagaram and Visakhapatnam of Andhra Pradesh.

He said the three North Andhra districts were earlier with Sri Visakha Grameena Bank with Srikakulam as headquarters. He further mentioned that as the same rural bank cannot exist in two States as per the RRB Act, the APGVB should have been shifted to AP by June 2, 2014, the day on which the State was bifurcated and it was not done so far.

Aja Sarma said that the Central government has issued a notification on October 20, 2014, renaming Deccan Grameena Bank as Telangana Grameena Bank and merged some more districts of Telangana by issuing another notification keeping the three north coastal Andhra districts with the bank having headquarters at Warangal even today which is unfortunate.

When the Lok Sabha members of Vizag and Srikakulam raised the issue, the Centre has set up a committee in July, 2015 to look into the bifurcation issue of the bank. The general secretary mentioned that the Centre failed to take any action in this regard even after the committee submitted its report in February, 2016.

Explaining that apart from the administrative inconvenience, the employees were facing problems, he appealed to the Union Minister to initiate steps for shifting of bank headquarters to AP, to keep three Uttarandhra districts in the APGVB-fold giving option to the employees whether to remain in Telangana or to move to their native districts.