There are banks, and then there are institutions that become part of a society’s collective memory. Jammu and Kashmir Bank belongs to the second category.

For generations, people in Jammu and Kashmir have seen the bank not merely as a place to deposit money or obtain loans, but as an institution that grew alongside their families, businesses and aspirations. Its branches, employees and even its name carry an emotional familiarity that few financial institutions can claim.

That is precisely why the questions now being raised about the bank deserve serious public scrutiny.

Apni Party president Altaf Bukhari has questioned the sharp difference between the bank’s credit growth within J&K and outside the region, while also raising concerns over non-performing assets, recruitment opportunities for local youth, Board representation and reports of a possible shift of the headquarters from Srinagar. Recent figures show advances outside J&K and Ladakh have indeed been growing considerably faster than advances within J&K.

These are not questions that should be dismissed as political rhetoric. Nor should they be answered with silence.

If Jammu and Kashmir is the majority shareholder, its government has a responsibility to explain whether the institution is still adequately serving the economic interests of its principal stakeholders.

The question of recruitment is equally important. If local youth gradually lose opportunities in an institution built with a deep connection to this region, people will inevitably ask: what exactly remains local about J&K Bank?

And if decisions are being taken to weaken that connection, those responsible should understand that public institutions ultimately answer not only to balance sheets, but to public trust.

No conspiracy should be presumed without evidence. But if wrongdoing, manipulation or deliberate decisions against the interests of the bank and its principal stakeholders are established, those responsible must pay the price under law and through institutional accountability.

J&K Bank has survived difficult times because people believed it was their bank.

That trust should not be squandered.

© Kashmir News Trust (KNT). Unauthorized use without attribution is prohibited.