In the wake of the fire that gutted the top floors of the State Bank of India building on Rajaji Salai, the bank has shifted three key branches functioning out of there to other locations. SBI also proposes to involve the Heritage Conservation Committee in the restoration process of the landmark structure.
The three branches — Chennai headquarters, the Rajaji Salai branch and the small medium enterprises branch — which were functioning from the heritage building resumed normal banking operations at three different locations in the city.
The small medium enterprises branch was shifted to T. Nagar, the Rajaji Salai branch to Egmore, and the Chennai main branch, to Broadway.
Talking to presspersons on Monday, P.S. Prakash Rao, chief general manager of the bank, said that customers had not lost cash or jewellery. However, officials were yet to ascertain the monetary damage caused by the fire. All data relating to transactions was protected by a real-time network back-up, he added.
A customer of the bank — Gopikrishna —who had owned a locker facility at the Rajaji Salai branch, said that he had found to his satisfaction that all the items in his locker were safely relocated to the Egmore branch.
Fire auditMr. Rao said that a fire audit, which was done routinely, has been proposed to be carried out for all branches across the country.
He said that an inventory of buildings of the bank in the city would be undertaken.
Meanwhile, structural engineers from IIT-Madras have visited the site and a visit from officials of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is impending.
Based on the findings of these two teams, the bank would take a call, he added.
General manager Sanjiv Chadha said that SBI was deeply concerned about conserving heritage structures and said the bank would contribute to restoring the building if it were possible to do so.
