A top Finance Ministry official on Wednesday said it is difficult to get armed guards for all Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) overnight.

Answering a specific question on safety of ATMs, Rajiv Takru, Secretary, Financial Services, observed that law and order is a State subject.

The Secretary spoke to the media on the sidelines of a pension summit organised by CII.

That security at ATMs is lax is underscored by last week’s incident at Bangalore where a woman bank official was grievously injured at an ATM kiosk.

Industry body Assocham has estimated that there is a shortfall of nearly 1.5 lakh guards for providing security at ATMs.

It said only 50,000 ATMs are guarded and 1.15 lakh are covered by CCTVs.

According to National Payments Corporation of India figures, there are 1,33,180 ATMs across the country.

Go hi-tech

D.S. Rawat, Secretary-General, Assocham, said the shocking incident at Bangalore underscores the need for expeditious recruitment of guards to ensure that all ATMs are properly guarded and equipped with security gadgets, other than CCTVs.

While recruitment of guards and manning all ATMs 24x7 may be time consuming and costly, the quick solution would be to use hi-tech security gadgets, such as automatic alarms, improvement of camera footage and even setting up central monitoring rooms, which will require perfect coordination between the banks and police authorities. Rawat said, “At least in big cities, banks should encourage and promote the use of credit cards. More and more merchandise outlets should be covered by plastic money so that the use of hard cash is reduced.

“This would not only help reduce security risks but also help the economy capture the transactions and thus, reduce unaccounted money.”

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