Over the years when RBI
embarked upon the path of its growth there are many anecdotes that are wrapped
in the footprints of time.
In those days, one-rupee silver coins used
to be examined by cashiers for their genuineness by striking them on the wooden
counter or wooden tables at a very fast speed. They could identify counterfeit
coins just by listening to the sound of each coin. The RBI was truly musical
those days.
After partition officers from Karachi were asked to
report to Mumbai office in 1947. When it came to women staff, there were hardly
any on the Bank’s rolls on that time. The few who joined being mainly telephone
operators. The first lady to be taken up for a clerical work joined in early
forties and the first to be recruited directly as an officer was Miss Dharma
Venkatraman who joined in March 1949. Gradually the numbers increased.
According to a data women formed less than 8 per cent of the total staff in
January 1968; which is around 18 per cent.
