Jharkhand SIR: Search intensifies for pre-1987 bank passbooks, LIC documents

THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK

Daltonganj, August 26: The search for decades-old bank and post office passbooks and LIC policy documents issued before July 1, 1987 has intensified in Jharkhand as electors scramble to produce documentary records during the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

For many electors, however, finding documents that are nearly four decades old has become a difficult task, particularly at a time when banking and insurance records have largely shifted to digital systems.

Under the documents listed by the Election Commission of India (ECI) for the SIR exercise, bank passbooks, post office passbooks and LIC policy documents issued before July 1, 1987 can serve as documentary evidence in the verification process.

Electors served notices during the SIR process are turning up at camps with their latest bank passbooks and PAN cards, but officials say these recent documents do not meet the specific requirement when proof relating to the period before July 1, 1987 is sought.

This correspondent came across at least half a dozen women electors at the SIR camp at Brahmin High School near Sahitya Samaj Chowk, who arrived with their latest bank passbooks and PAN cards.

“The BLO came to our houses and asked us to bring our bank passbook and PAN card, so we did,” some of the electors said.

The confusion, however, was over the requirement that the relevant passbook should date back to before July 1, 1987.

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‘Where will we find a 39-year-old passbook?’

For many families, preserving a manually issued bank or post office passbook for nearly four decades is a daunting task.

Sushila Devi, an elector at the camp, expressed her frustration over the requirement, saying in Hindi that it was nearly impossible to locate a passbook that was 39 to 40 years old as old documents were often discarded over the years.

Her reaction reflected the difficulty being faced by many electors searching their homes for documents from the pre-digital era.

Officials confirm old passbooks can be used

Rashmi Ranjan, Additional Assistant Electoral Registration Officer (AAERO), who was present at the Brahmin High School SIR camp, said BLOs were right in asking electors to produce bank or post office passbooks issued before July 1, 1987.

Kundan Kumar, Electoral Registration Officer of the Bishrampur Assembly constituency and Additional Collector, said the ECI had also listed LIC policy documents issued before July 1, 1987 among the documents that can be presented during the SIR process.

He said documents issued by government undertakings before the cut-off date could also be considered for the relevant verification process.

Date of passbook issuance matters

The distinction between the date of opening a bank account and the date of issuance of a passbook is proving important for electors.

S Dutta, a field officer with SBI’s Narsanda AMY branch, said the date recorded on the passbook generally refers to its issuance rather than necessarily being the date on which the account was opened.

“If information about the date of opening of an old account is required, customers will have to apply to the bank for the relevant information,” he said.

Dutta noted that bank account numbers in the pre-1987 period were much shorter, generally consisting of four or five digits, unlike the 11-digit numbers commonly used by SBI today.

Banks searching old manual records

Before the transition to digital banking, records were maintained manually in ledgers. As a result, banks may need to search their old records to establish information relating to accounts opened decades ago.

This has made locating a passbook or other documentary record issued before July 1, 1987 akin to searching for a “hidden treasure”, according to some electors.

Post offices to search old ledgers

Postal Superintendent S K Sangam of India Post in Daltonganj said old ledgers would have to be searched for electors seeking information about accounts opened before July 1, 1987.

He said records of Recurring Deposit (RD) and Term Deposit (TD) accounts may be difficult to trace because such accounts are disposed of after maturity under the applicable record-retention process.

Sangam said post offices moved from manual to digital account management around 2014. Therefore, information relating to accounts opened before July 1, 1987 may have to be retrieved from old physical ledgers.

LIC policy documents equally difficult to find

Old LIC policy documents are another challenge for electors.

An LIC agent said policy documents generally contain separate dates relating to the commencement of the policy and its maturity. However, policyholders often do not preserve documents for decades after the policy matures and the amount is settled.

Since LIC was established in September 1956, the proportion of policyholders in Palamu during the late 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was relatively small, according to an official document cited in the report.

As a result, pre-July 1, 1987 LIC policy documents are expected to be difficult to find among families in the district.

A race against time for SIR documents

The search for pre-1987 records has now become an important part of the document-gathering exercise for many electors in Jharkhand.

While officials maintain that old bank, post office and LIC records can serve as documentary evidence where applicable, the practical challenge is locating documents that were issued nearly four decades ago and were often handwritten or maintained entirely in physical records.

For many families, the SIR exercise has therefore turned into a search through old trunks, cupboards, files and institutional ledgers for documents that most people never expected to need again.

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