Raju Kumar Sharma, who a second-year PGDM student specialising in Finance at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow, has recently, completed his 45-day internship with Canara Bank, Mahanagar Branch, Lucknow.

Raju was interviewed by Gunja Madhyan, a first year student at Jaipuria Lucknow and a member of the Media and Communications Club, for the benefit of other first year students as well as aspirants to Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow.

Gunja – To start off, how would you rate your Summer Internship Programme with Canara Bank?

Raju – Nothing short of fantastic! What made it even better was that I was given a stipend of Rs. 7000 per month. This not only covered my costs but also enabled me to save some money, as the internship was in Lucknow itself. I also got a first-hand feel of how a bank works, especially the core functioning of the bank.

Gunja – How did you get chosen for the Internship? Was it through your network outside Jaipuria Lucknow?

Raju – Not at all. It was an on-campus placement at Jaipuria Lucknow. Once I cleared the selection process, Canara Bank HQ in Bangalore approved the SIP.

Gunja – Wow! That’s quite encouraging for us first year students at Jaipuria Lucknow. What was the profile of the internship? What was your project about?

Raju – The project involved risk management, study of loan documents, data tabulation and analysis. Since loan papers are very confidential documents, my project required a high level of trust and  security. I had access to more than 120 sets of loan documents of the branch. In my first week of internship, I assisted the Branch Manager in compiling the TDS for the last 3 years. Interestingly, they depended a lot on me when it came to the use of technology, even for something as simple as signature scanning and linking those signatures to the servers. It only required me to study new software that was introduced during my internship. In fact, I fed in the locker details into the software. Surprisingly, the Probationary Officer of the branch assisted me in this work, and not the other way round.

Gunja – I too feel that at Jaipuria we get used to technology in a big way. That’s why you must’ve found that part easy. What opinion did you frame of the way banks in India work?

Raju – It was quite an exposure to the drawbacks, as well as the powers, of the nationalised banks. One of the issues that is yet to be tackled is that employees work on their own terms and conditions. Also, there are various problems in the actual working environment. There are a large number of willful defaulters of loans and the recovery system is not appropriate. But there is a major advantage with the nationalised banks – there is no individual decision-making power and approval of every concerned account or loan is necessary. Apart from checks and balances, this encourages teamwork, which was evident in the Mahanagar Branch. The co-ordination among employees is remarkable. As a result, the staff are very friendly and co operative.

Gunja – Hopefully, we too will get an opportunity to work in such a friendly environment during our SIP. Thank you for the interaction; I’m sure my colleagues from the first year at Jaipuria Lucknow will benefit from it.