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The Madras experience

`SAVINGS' IS what government has for years been encouraging us to do. But savings are apparently not something at least one foreign bank wants to encourage. When a friend, who had not operated his savings account in it for some time, went there one day recently to draw some money for an emergency, he was told that the account was not operational. The bank's policy, he was told, was not to keep operational any account, savings included that had not been used for two years. To make it operational, he would have to sign all sorts of requests, in triplicate so to speak, and then open a new account. With foreign banks also wanting to charge you if you deposit cash and they have to count it, we appear to be entering a new era in banking where the customer is not king, though in these establishments he's made to feel that more politely than in far more helpful nationalised banks.

The week before last a friend's water suppliers told him that their tankers could now serve clients only between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Last week, he found some relaxation to this police order, with the tankers being permitted after 10 p.m.

Relaxation in rules or not, it strikes me that such rules in a water-short city make relaxation impossible. Imagine having to get up in the middle of the night to welcome the water tanker and pay for its load! Now, does keeping people awake because the authorities can't enforce road rules against speeding, reckless driving etc., seem fair? On the other hand, the rules forcing private omnibuses to use only the Koyambedu terminus seem no longer in force. Some say a few omnibus owners have got a court order, others have decided where there's a will, a road will open. Truly, living in Madras is a learning experience every day.

S. MUTHIAH

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