For many in Dakshina Kannada, Vijaya Bank is an emotion

MANGALURU: We were waiting to meet the DGM at Vijaya Bank’s branch at Lighthouse Hill Road in Mangaluru – also known as the founder’s branch because it was the bank’s first branch – when this elderly lady walked in. As she came closer to transact at the cash counter, what stood out was a locket around her neck. It bore the portrait of Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty, the man who oversaw the golden era of Vijaya Bank in the 1970s.
The DGM’s secretary introduced her to us. She was Juliet Lazar, a retired employee who continues to be a customer of the bank. We ask about the locket and she says, “He’s devaru (our god). Without him I’d have never had such a stable and prosperous life. He was willing to hire anyone, provided we showed we were hardworking.” Then when we tell her we are writing a story on what people think about Vijaya Bank’s impending merger with Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank, Juliet is in tears and at a loss for words. She clearly can’t bear the thought of losing the bank as she knew it.
In the Dakshina Kannada district, there’s a deep sense of loss. We met Lakshmidhar Indra, 56, who runs a shop in Ujire and for whom Vijaya Bank has been the go-to bank for the past 30 years. His extended family holds nearly 18 accounts there. He’s also tearful over the merger, and described the bank as the “pride of the South Canara” region.
Rajaram Shetty, who retired as assistant general manager at Vijaya Bank, has a photograph of Sunder Ram Shetty in his puja room. When he was 19 and had just graduated, he was interviewed and recruited by Sunder Ram Shetty, who urged him to finish his post-graduation and a banking degree while he worked at the bank. Post merger, he is convinced there will be employee rationalisation and branches will be shut down, hurting rural customers. He says this would be in direct contrast to the founders’ vision. “Sunder Ram Shetty sir kept expanding the bank by opening 100 branches at a time. One single day once, we opened 27 branches. His vision was no rural person should have to travel more than 10-15 km to avail of banking services,” he says.
It was the desire to create jobs and help local farmers that had prompted philanthropist and social worker A B Shetty to found Vijaya Bank with a group of 14 farmers from the Bunt community in 1931. With an authorised capital of Rs 5 lakh and a paid up capital of Rs 8,670, the bank initially grew conservatively but steadily.
In 1962, Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty took over as chairman, and, in subsequent years, he changed the face of the bank. He first merged nine smaller banks with itself. And then rapidly expanded the number of branches. During his 16 years as chairman, Vijaya Bank went from 21 branches, 176 employees and deposits of Rs 1.8 crore to 571 branches, 9,059 employees and deposits of Rs 396 crore.
The bank was a big employer of women. And though it was started by the Bunt community, it was secular in its approach to recruitment and proved a vital source of employment for those in the then South Canara region (districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udipi and Kasargod). The rule of thumb at the bank was, if you were a PUC passout, you’d become a peon, if a graduate, you become a clerk, and if a first-class graduate, a trainee officer.
Sunder Ram Shetty held family values dear. Roopa Bontara, who retired as assistant manager, recollects that for her and many women employees, marriage, childbirth and rearing kids had no impact on their careers. “It was a women friendly office. You got three months of maternity leave, you could extend it with privilege leave and casual leave, and even go beyond that, upto a year, on loss of pay for your child or a parent with terminal illness,” she says.
Old-timers worry that values such as these, as also the focus on farming and rural areas, would suffer with the merger. “Many of our rural branches are making losses. It’s a highly profitable bank, and our urban centres subsidise the rural ones. Post-merger, farmers may have to travel 50-100 km to get to a bank branch, and we think it will come with elitist attitudes,” Rajaram Shetty says.
Premnath Alva, former deputy GM, says it was farmercentric schemes that propelled the early growth of the bank. “We were the first to introduce a credit card for farmers, to introduce flexi-repayment models around harvest season for various crops, and the first to provide small loans. A tradition that continues to this day,” he says. Larger banks like Dena Bank and Bank of Baroda have traditionally stayed away from small loans as the cost of servicing can be as high as the interest being collected.
Alva was a block development officer with the government and had served with the Peace Corps in the US when he was approached by Sunder Ram Shetty. “People thought I was mad to give up a good government job for a private job, and that too a small, lessknown bank. But it was his vision for farmers, the promise that I’d have independence to act on my own, and his charismatic personality that made me accept his offer and move wife, kids, bag and baggage to their head office in Bengaluru,” he says.
MAKING HISTORY
• May 2, 1931: Bank registered
• Oct 23, 1931: Vijaya Bank launched by A B Shetty in Mangaluru on the occasion of Vijayadashami Day, from which it gets its name
• 1958: Becomes a scheduled bank
• 1962: Bank suffers major fraud, nearly wiping out the its capital. Mulki Sunder Ram Shetty steps in
• 1963-1968: Nine smaller banks merged with Vijaya Bank. Major branch expansion
• 1965: Bank registers its iconic logo
• Nov 11, 1969: Bank’s head office shifted to Bengaluru
• April 15, 1980: Bank nationalised
• Oct 26, 1984: New Bengaluru headquarters inaugurated
• April 1, 2019: Bank to merge with Bank of Baroda and Dena Bank