With the entry of private sector banks in Indian banking sector it has become difficult for the public sector banks in India to retain their existing market share without giving due emphasis in the deliverance of quality services to their customers. Public sector banks in India have been facing cut throat competition from private sector banks and State Bank of India (SBI), the largest public sector bank in India, is no exception to this. In such a precarious situation, public sector banks in India need to give extra attention to their existing service policy and reset it accordingly. Delivery of quality services not only enables a bank to retain their existing customer base but also helps in attracting potential customers in their basket, which in turn, increases the profit earning capacity of a bank.

The present paper makes an attempt to compare the gap in service quality of State Bank of India (SBI) in Cachar district of Assam. In order to arrive at the findings of the study, statistical tools, such as, mean, standard deviation, Kruskal Wallis test have been applied. The study reveals that the gap (i.e. Perception of customers-Expectation of customers) with respect to all the five dimensions except reliability dimension of service quality is statistically significant across the select branches of SBI in Cachar district of Assam at 5% level of significance.

KEY WORDS: Perception, Expectation, Tangibility, Responsiveness, Assurance.

JEL Classification: M31