Bank / Credit Union

City threatens to seal 600 ATMs if banks don't pay fees

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October 6, 2020

Six hundred ATMs could be sealed and rendered inoperable in the city of Gurugram, India, if banks don't pay pending registration fees to the Municipal Corporation of Gurugram, according to a Hindust Times report.

If any communication infrastructure is installed in any commercial building, the owner needs to pay the local municipal corporation a licensing fee for it or remove the structure altogether, according to India's Communication and Connectivity Infrastructure Policy 2013.

In India, a dish antenna is classified as a communication infrastructure for which banks need to pay the MCG a license fee per ATM. Banks have repeatedly been served notices to pay the fees over the last two months but have yet to respond, according to the report. The fee is Rs 5,000 (US $68) per ATM.

According to city officials, a file in connection with the commencement of sealing operations has been sent to MCG Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh for approval.

"A meeting was conducted with MCG officials earlier this year where they had asked us for relevant contact details of all banks in the city for the licensing fee process. They had initially sought the same details from a national telecommunications company that provide dish antennas to all ATMs but hadn't received any response. On July 29, email addresses of all banks concerned in the city were shared with the MCG's planning branch for their perusal," Prahlad Rai Godara, lead district manager for Gurugram told the news outlet.

Godara said there are 537 bank branches in urban areas of the city that fall within MCG's jurisdiction and 1,489 ATMs in the Gurugram district.