Date:21/09/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/09/21/stories/2006092121880500.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Bank customer gets `true' service

Staff Reporter

Jewellery worth Rs. 4 lakhs returned to customer

LOYALTY REWARDED: A. Vasudevan, DGM of Syndicate Bank, handing a pair of gold waist belts to Sridhar Reddy at the Alwal branch in Secunderabad on Wednesday. Bank employee Subba Reddy is also seen. — PHOTO: P.V. Sivakumar.

HYDERABAD: Alwal-based businessman Sridhar Reddy and his family now have one more reason to continue their two-decade-old relation with the local branch of the Syndicate Bank.

For, it is not every day that someone loses jewellery worth Rs. 4 lakhs and gets it back, that too without police cases or related hassles.

Here, it was bank employee Subba Reddy's honesty that saved them the agony.

It all started on May 20 when one of Sridhar Reddy's sisters-in-law operated a locker of their family in the Alwal branch of the Syndicate Bank.

After taking out a few ornaments, she forgot to keep two gold waistbands, back in the locker. She had left out the two ornaments, weighing 40 tolas and worth Rs. 4 lakhs, in a handkerchief on top of the locker.

The jewellery lay there for four days before bank clerk Subba Reddy noticed them on May 24. "I saw one tip of a handkerchief hanging out from above the locker. Once I saw that it contained the jewellery, I immediately handed it over to my higher ups, who also did not know whose ornaments these were," he said. The bank authorities kept the jewellery with them, waiting for the owner to turn up. Mr. Reddy and his family, who operated the locker once again in June, failed to notice the missing jewellery.

Finally, it was in early September that they found that the waistbands were missing and alerted the bank authorities, who in turn asked them to identify the ornaments. On Wednesday, the four-month-long drama drew to an end when the bank's DGM A. Vasudevan handed over the jewellery back to Mr. Reddy.

"We have had different accounts, deposits and loans with this bank for the past 20 years. This episode has just renewed our faith in it. It's not every day that we come across honest men like Subba Reddy," he said, with an arm around a beaming Subba Reddy.