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DEGENERATION OF A PSU BANKER



Most PSU banks have seen stupendous growth in business and profits in the last 5 years. Top rung PSU bank like SBI has seen its business grow by over three times and profits growing over five fold. The non performing assets of all these PSU banks have also seen consistent decline. When the global financial world was in turmoil in 2007-08 and even many private sector banks were in deep trouble the PSU banks did reasonably well and public confidence in the banks have increased manifold. The increase in business and profits of these PSU banks have increased workload of the existing employees and all these employees have served their organization without complaining about the volume increase. These employees are posted in the remotest corner of the country and work in most difficult circumstances without any additional compensation.



The long pending demand of the salary revision has recently been resolved with Indian Bankers Association (IBA) with 17.5% hike. However, if we go into the detailed intricacies the actual hike has been about 9% for a Chief Manager and slightly over 9% for Assistant General Managers in State Bank of India. This after the 3 ½ year of negotiation and parleys with the management. This compares poorly with the actual hike given to the Central Government employees and the Public Sector Undertaking and the shortfall is as high as 40% to 50% as compared to the employees of the government in other undertakings.


To protest this settlement majority of the officers in the Senior Management Grade IV & V in Central Office of SBI have resigned from their membership of their Association and this trend is trickling down to the 14 Circles of SBI with many of them joining the protestors against the wage settlement. Joining a PSU bank was a pride for the students who were graduating from Universities, Engineering and Management Institutes in 80s and 90s, however slowly the job has lost its charm with poor salaries and lack of Management vision and poor leadership from the Association and Unions. Today, the job carries a lot of risks, working in the branches till late at night and on holidays with no extra pay and frequent transfers. Employees are transferred twice or thrice during a year and no boarding and lodging expenses are paid by the banks.



People who are enterprising are leaving their job for greener pastures in Private sector banks who reward their knowledge and skills and also care for them. Not even a single bank management appear to be serious in addressing to this issue as their hands are tied in presence of the bureaucrats and it also appear that they are not interested in putting up their case forcefully. Everybody who has some knowledge about this industry is aware that people are leaving this organization due to poor salaries, difficult working conditions, lack of depth in the job and long working hours with no additional compensation. A Chief General Manager who has retired from SBI in 2000 is getting a pension of Rs. 5000/-, under such circumstances who will like to stay in an organization which looks so sound and robust from outside but takes so poor care of its employees. SBI has recently hired Mckinsey to give a report on why people are leaving the organization.



However, the plight of these bankers are not going to improve until and unless something fundamental happens in their salary structure and work environment. The Finance Minister, should also take note of this alarming trend otherwise PSU banks will loose the dynamism and enterprise of its employees and it will be too late as people who are serving the nation and the social sector desire that people who rule the country also take care of them as the Prime Minister did for the employees of the Defence Services or the Supreme Court did in a recent ruling on employee of defence services who was getting hardly any pension.

Article by :Mr. Rajesh Singh