( Read my Comment below)
Public sector bank employees may be rewarded with out-of-turn promotions, independent incentive structure and transfer policies for their role in making the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana a success with 115 million savings accounts opened so far.
The move, which would be a part of an overall revamp of human resource (HR) policy, would help the government lenders match pace with the private sector counterparts.
However, officials may have to undertake rural postings to be eligible for promotions. “Mandatory rural and semi-urban posting is also required to be eligible for promotion to the next higher grade, and the issue of promotion should be left to the individual banks,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, chief economic adviser, State Bank of India.
The policy revamp is also expected to reduce the large-scale poaching of government bank employees that is likely to be spurred by the Reserve Bank of India’s granting of licences to small finances and payments banks.
“With rigid HR policies, there is discontent among the employees. If the salary structure is better, an exodus from state-owned banks is likely,” said a senior bank executive on condition of anonymity.
An industry source pointed out that shortcomings in the HR polices of these banks need to be addressed in order to boost the morale of employees.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley could even make an announcement about flexibile HR policies in the forthcoming budget, according to top sources.
Link Hindustan Times
Withdraw bank strike call: Jaitley-Hindu Business Line 23.02.2015
New Delhi, February 22:
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has appealed to bank employee unions to call off their proposed four-day nationwide strike from February 25. Public sector banks (PSB) employees and their unions should not resort to agitation approach by participating in bank strike, Jaitley said in a statement here.
Banks are already in negotiations with their unions and associations for wage settlement and that bipartite negotiations in a cordial manner is the only available tool for settlement, he said.
Bank unions should not resort to disruptive means, and call off the call for strike, he appealed. PSB employees had given a call to go on a countrywide strike from February 25 to press for their wage related demands.
My Comments on above news are given below
Finance minister Mr. Arun Jaitley has suggested bank management to give out of turn promotion and frame flexible HR policy to attract talent and to improve the health of banks. I laugh at his knowledge and his understanding of what has been going on in Public sector banks for years and decades. He is perhaps misguided by CMD of banks with whom he frequently interacts.
It is CMDs of the bank who give feedback to FM and explains why health of PS banks is poorer than that of private banks. He does not like to understand that it the their quality of speaking and their expertise in keeping ministers happy that has made them ED or CMD of a bank.
I like to bring to the knowledge of learned Finance Minister that bank management of every public sector bank has already have merit oriented promotion policy for last two decades and more. But the million dollar question is that whether they used the merit oriented policy for selecting really meritorious officers for higher post and higher assignment or they used this power of promotion delegated to them to pick top class flatterers and bribe earners.
Policy framed at all levels in all offices is invariably of good quality and full of attractive ingredients , as if policy will recognise only talent and will have no place for non-performers. But when execution comes, it is only the flattery and bribery or use of source of some higher officials or that of VIP recommendation which is more meaningful than any other so called merit parameters.
When interview takes place , the panel members have every right to give 25 out of 25 marks to flatterers if they want to promote an officer and on the other hand they may give 5 out of 25 if they want to reject an officer in promotion process. This happened in case of not only Mr. S K Jain CMD of Syndicate bank, but it happens in banks at all level promotions.
FM suggests for out of turn promotion to attract talented officers and to give opportunity to good performers. But perhaps FM is not aware that bank management have been giving out of turn promotions for last two decades and more , but never they gave out of turn promotion to sincere workers , they gave this facility of out of turn promotion to only flatterers and to officers who had high level connections to motivate members of Interview panel. All other ornamental parameters of promotion policy become totally irrelevant and insignificant when 25 out of 25 marks are given to a bad candidate in Interview due to vested interest or other ulterior motive of Interview Board members.
Therefore I have no hesitation to say that it is solely the Power of giving out of turn promotion vested in top officials of bank management which has resulted in fast deterioration in work culture, in assets of bank and in overall quality of banks services as compared to that of private banks. Because in private banks , bosses value quality of juniors whereas in public sector banks bosses give value to officer who worship bosses as God .
In private banks , profit is sole motive, health of asset is key criteria for credit growth and quality of service extended to customers are key points for identification of suitability of an officer for higher assignment. Whereas in PS banks , it is red carpet welcome to bosses during their visits, quality of gits to bosses, number of times an officer uses the word 'Yes Sir ' while talking to bosses, how quickly junior recommends for sanction of loan or sanction loan to persons and companies whom bosses like, how he achieve the target rightly or wrongly etc.
That is why I laugh at Mr. FM who is suggesting to bank management to give out of turn promotion without knowing that this culture of giving out of turn promotion has damaged the work culture and demotivated good workers and it is this policy which has forced several good officers to boycott promotion processes taking place every year because they know that hard work and good output has no place in promotion processes. Good Officers know that if Interview panel want to promote , even a corrupt and charge sheeted officer may be promoted , ignoring all good works of good officers .
It is the freedom given to top management that even recruited officer from campus in higher scale thus giving higher pay to fresh officers at the cost of experienced officers who have performed very well and who have experience of years and decades. Had bank management given value to true experience and true knowledge and real ability of an officer to put his entire calibre into practice , banks could not have seen such bad days as are visible in various reports coming in public domain for last five to ten years.
Further FM suggest bank management to give value to rural posting. Again he is not aware that there is already a provision in Promotion policy to give weightage to officers in promotion who have worked in rural areas . But in fact this clause have been cleverly used by top officials of banks during last two decades and more only to penalise an officer who does not fit in the flattery framework set by top officials. If they like to promote an officer who have never worked in rural areas, they will take an undertaking from officer that he or she will work in rural areas if promoted. But there are many officers in every bank who have never seen a rural area and worked only in Metros and big towns and cities and still they have been getting one after other promotions. On the contrary there are thousands of such officers who have not seen big towns and who have worked mostly in rural areas but not getting promotion.
It is therefore surely a matter of laughing stock that FM does not know what is actually happening in banks and simply trust CMDs who interact with them . He does not know that an officer has reached the level of ED or CMD mostly by using unfair means and the same has been proved during last few years b several such exposures including that of Mr. S K Jain or that of Pawan Bansal.
I again laugh at Mr. FM who suggests bank unions to call off strike scheduled from 25th Fab and advised them to have trust on negotiation for arriving at settlement. He is not perhaps aware or he wilfully wants to remain in dark. He should know that negotiation of Indian Bank Association , (an authorised negotiating body on behalf of PS banks) with United Forum of Bank Unions have been taking place for last 26 months. When 26 months are insufficient for wage settlement , UFBU is not unjustified in resorting to strike to build pressure on IBA as well as GOI to understand the demands made by bank unions .
Ministry of Finance, IBA, and GOI all are responsible for such inordinate delay in settlement forcing bank unions to adopt strike route. IBA and MOF have to simply decide how much percentage of wage hike is possible, how much they can afford , how much is justified keeping in view the salary structure of officers in central services, how much demand is acceptable etc . And all this is possible in two to three sitting in a month time.
If IBA or MOF or GOI are really serious in such critical matters, they can resolve the issue in not more than 3 months. Now after 26 months of futile exercises in several meeting with negotiating body IBA, if FM suggest Bank unions to have trust on the capacity of negotiation , it seems nothing but ridiculous and appears definitely a matter of laughing stock.
It is further ridiculous when they IBA and MOF say that banks are not in a position to pay higher wage hike due to low profitability or higher burden of bad debts . There are several PSUs who are incurring huge losses , still they are paid higher pay at par with Central pay structure. There are many government department in the country which are not at all functional , but the staff posted there are paid full salary.
BSNL, Airlines, Coal India, SAIL like companies are not earning but employees are paid much higher than bank staff. Why?
Finance Ministers of past two decades , RBI officials, auditors and inspectors failed to catch hold of evil elements , failed to achieve target envisaged for them , failed to discharge their duty as per expectation from them and so on..... still they are not asked for wage curtailment or not punished for lapses occurred on their part in nipping in the bud which made the bank critically sick . Why salaries and perquisites of these top officials and ministers are raised periodically without assessing their ability, capability and potential.
On the contrary public sector banks pay lacs of crores of rupees to central government as tax every year and pay thousands of crores of rupees as dividend to central government every year and still book profit every year to retain as capital. It is these banks which write off thousands of crores of rupees to fulfil social agenda of the government and put at risk lacs of crores of rupees in financing to infrastructure projects only at the request of ministers forming part of the government.
Ten lac bank staff are no where responsible for rise in stressed assets or erosion in profits of these banks. Bank staff and even senior level officer who form 95% of total manpower of the banks have got no power to sanction loan to anyone even more than 50 lacs or one crore. It is always ED, CMDs, Top officials, RBI directors, RBI officials , Government directors , expert Chartered Accountants who form the Board of Directors and Managing Committees of bank or who are in Credit Approval Committees of bank which sanction loans to the tune of hundreds and thousands of crores of rupees and which turn bad in few years.
Government have never punished such top officials when the accounts goes bad . Top 100 accounts of every bank will amount to 95 percent of total bad debts existing in PS banks and that has been written off due to some pressure or the other.
Who are responsible for such losses caused to bank?
It is definitely not bank staff who are on strike route for getting respectable wage hike. Rather it is they who work day and night and even during holidays due to manpower shortage and help bank in implementing and wholeheartedly participating in various social welfare schemes launched by GOI to fulfil the agenda of social development, poverty alleviation and employment generation programme.
Lastly I would like to suggest Learned FM Mr. Jaitley to give few days time to understand what is happening in banks and to ensure justified wage hike for bank staff and to stop flattery culture in bank's promotion processes and to stop ongoing loot in campus recruitment in the name of talent .
Rajan cautions against ‘appellate Raj’-Hindu Business Line
Mumbai, February 20:
Banks are already in negotiations with their unions and associations for wage settlement and that bipartite negotiations in a cordial manner is the only available tool for settlement, he said.
Bank unions should not resort to disruptive means, and call off the call for strike, he appealed. PSB employees had given a call to go on a countrywide strike from February 25 to press for their wage related demands.
My Comments on above news are given below
Finance minister Mr. Arun Jaitley has suggested bank management to give out of turn promotion and frame flexible HR policy to attract talent and to improve the health of banks. I laugh at his knowledge and his understanding of what has been going on in Public sector banks for years and decades. He is perhaps misguided by CMD of banks with whom he frequently interacts.
It is CMDs of the bank who give feedback to FM and explains why health of PS banks is poorer than that of private banks. He does not like to understand that it the their quality of speaking and their expertise in keeping ministers happy that has made them ED or CMD of a bank.
I like to bring to the knowledge of learned Finance Minister that bank management of every public sector bank has already have merit oriented promotion policy for last two decades and more. But the million dollar question is that whether they used the merit oriented policy for selecting really meritorious officers for higher post and higher assignment or they used this power of promotion delegated to them to pick top class flatterers and bribe earners.
Policy framed at all levels in all offices is invariably of good quality and full of attractive ingredients , as if policy will recognise only talent and will have no place for non-performers. But when execution comes, it is only the flattery and bribery or use of source of some higher officials or that of VIP recommendation which is more meaningful than any other so called merit parameters.
When interview takes place , the panel members have every right to give 25 out of 25 marks to flatterers if they want to promote an officer and on the other hand they may give 5 out of 25 if they want to reject an officer in promotion process. This happened in case of not only Mr. S K Jain CMD of Syndicate bank, but it happens in banks at all level promotions.
FM suggests for out of turn promotion to attract talented officers and to give opportunity to good performers. But perhaps FM is not aware that bank management have been giving out of turn promotions for last two decades and more , but never they gave out of turn promotion to sincere workers , they gave this facility of out of turn promotion to only flatterers and to officers who had high level connections to motivate members of Interview panel. All other ornamental parameters of promotion policy become totally irrelevant and insignificant when 25 out of 25 marks are given to a bad candidate in Interview due to vested interest or other ulterior motive of Interview Board members.
Therefore I have no hesitation to say that it is solely the Power of giving out of turn promotion vested in top officials of bank management which has resulted in fast deterioration in work culture, in assets of bank and in overall quality of banks services as compared to that of private banks. Because in private banks , bosses value quality of juniors whereas in public sector banks bosses give value to officer who worship bosses as God .
In private banks , profit is sole motive, health of asset is key criteria for credit growth and quality of service extended to customers are key points for identification of suitability of an officer for higher assignment. Whereas in PS banks , it is red carpet welcome to bosses during their visits, quality of gits to bosses, number of times an officer uses the word 'Yes Sir ' while talking to bosses, how quickly junior recommends for sanction of loan or sanction loan to persons and companies whom bosses like, how he achieve the target rightly or wrongly etc.
That is why I laugh at Mr. FM who is suggesting to bank management to give out of turn promotion without knowing that this culture of giving out of turn promotion has damaged the work culture and demotivated good workers and it is this policy which has forced several good officers to boycott promotion processes taking place every year because they know that hard work and good output has no place in promotion processes. Good Officers know that if Interview panel want to promote , even a corrupt and charge sheeted officer may be promoted , ignoring all good works of good officers .
It is the freedom given to top management that even recruited officer from campus in higher scale thus giving higher pay to fresh officers at the cost of experienced officers who have performed very well and who have experience of years and decades. Had bank management given value to true experience and true knowledge and real ability of an officer to put his entire calibre into practice , banks could not have seen such bad days as are visible in various reports coming in public domain for last five to ten years.
Further FM suggest bank management to give value to rural posting. Again he is not aware that there is already a provision in Promotion policy to give weightage to officers in promotion who have worked in rural areas . But in fact this clause have been cleverly used by top officials of banks during last two decades and more only to penalise an officer who does not fit in the flattery framework set by top officials. If they like to promote an officer who have never worked in rural areas, they will take an undertaking from officer that he or she will work in rural areas if promoted. But there are many officers in every bank who have never seen a rural area and worked only in Metros and big towns and cities and still they have been getting one after other promotions. On the contrary there are thousands of such officers who have not seen big towns and who have worked mostly in rural areas but not getting promotion.
It is therefore surely a matter of laughing stock that FM does not know what is actually happening in banks and simply trust CMDs who interact with them . He does not know that an officer has reached the level of ED or CMD mostly by using unfair means and the same has been proved during last few years b several such exposures including that of Mr. S K Jain or that of Pawan Bansal.
I again laugh at Mr. FM who suggests bank unions to call off strike scheduled from 25th Fab and advised them to have trust on negotiation for arriving at settlement. He is not perhaps aware or he wilfully wants to remain in dark. He should know that negotiation of Indian Bank Association , (an authorised negotiating body on behalf of PS banks) with United Forum of Bank Unions have been taking place for last 26 months. When 26 months are insufficient for wage settlement , UFBU is not unjustified in resorting to strike to build pressure on IBA as well as GOI to understand the demands made by bank unions .
Ministry of Finance, IBA, and GOI all are responsible for such inordinate delay in settlement forcing bank unions to adopt strike route. IBA and MOF have to simply decide how much percentage of wage hike is possible, how much they can afford , how much is justified keeping in view the salary structure of officers in central services, how much demand is acceptable etc . And all this is possible in two to three sitting in a month time.
If IBA or MOF or GOI are really serious in such critical matters, they can resolve the issue in not more than 3 months. Now after 26 months of futile exercises in several meeting with negotiating body IBA, if FM suggest Bank unions to have trust on the capacity of negotiation , it seems nothing but ridiculous and appears definitely a matter of laughing stock.
It is further ridiculous when they IBA and MOF say that banks are not in a position to pay higher wage hike due to low profitability or higher burden of bad debts . There are several PSUs who are incurring huge losses , still they are paid higher pay at par with Central pay structure. There are many government department in the country which are not at all functional , but the staff posted there are paid full salary.
BSNL, Airlines, Coal India, SAIL like companies are not earning but employees are paid much higher than bank staff. Why?
Finance Ministers of past two decades , RBI officials, auditors and inspectors failed to catch hold of evil elements , failed to achieve target envisaged for them , failed to discharge their duty as per expectation from them and so on..... still they are not asked for wage curtailment or not punished for lapses occurred on their part in nipping in the bud which made the bank critically sick . Why salaries and perquisites of these top officials and ministers are raised periodically without assessing their ability, capability and potential.
On the contrary public sector banks pay lacs of crores of rupees to central government as tax every year and pay thousands of crores of rupees as dividend to central government every year and still book profit every year to retain as capital. It is these banks which write off thousands of crores of rupees to fulfil social agenda of the government and put at risk lacs of crores of rupees in financing to infrastructure projects only at the request of ministers forming part of the government.
Ten lac bank staff are no where responsible for rise in stressed assets or erosion in profits of these banks. Bank staff and even senior level officer who form 95% of total manpower of the banks have got no power to sanction loan to anyone even more than 50 lacs or one crore. It is always ED, CMDs, Top officials, RBI directors, RBI officials , Government directors , expert Chartered Accountants who form the Board of Directors and Managing Committees of bank or who are in Credit Approval Committees of bank which sanction loans to the tune of hundreds and thousands of crores of rupees and which turn bad in few years.
Government have never punished such top officials when the accounts goes bad . Top 100 accounts of every bank will amount to 95 percent of total bad debts existing in PS banks and that has been written off due to some pressure or the other.
Who are responsible for such losses caused to bank?
It is definitely not bank staff who are on strike route for getting respectable wage hike. Rather it is they who work day and night and even during holidays due to manpower shortage and help bank in implementing and wholeheartedly participating in various social welfare schemes launched by GOI to fulfil the agenda of social development, poverty alleviation and employment generation programme.
Lastly I would like to suggest Learned FM Mr. Jaitley to give few days time to understand what is happening in banks and to ensure justified wage hike for bank staff and to stop flattery culture in bank's promotion processes and to stop ongoing loot in campus recruitment in the name of talent .
Rajan cautions against ‘appellate Raj’-Hindu Business Line
Mumbai, February 20:
Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan on Friday cautioned against creating a multiple appellate process against government or regulatory action that is slow and undiscriminating. While this will contain government excess, it will also risk halting necessary government actions, he said.
He also said if the Centre or regulator is less effective in preparing its case than private parties then in will lead to the appellate process largely biasing justice towards those who have the resources to use it, rather than rectifying a miscarriage of justice.
The Governor’s comment on the multiple appellate process comes in the backdrop of the Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission recommending the setting up of a Financial Sector Appellate Tribunal, whose intent is to place more checks and balances on regulatory actions.
In a speech delivered last year, Rajan said, “…Even now, some regulatory decisions can be appealed to the central government. But how much checking and balancing is enough? Do we want even policy decisions to be appealable? Can legal oversight become excessive?”
Speaking at the DD Kosambi Ideas Festival in Goa on Friday, Rajan said “Let me emphasise, we need “checks and balance”, but we should ensure a balance of checks. We cannot have escaped from the License Permit Raj only to end up in the Appellate Raj!”
Strong governments, according to the Governor, need to be peopled by those who can provide needed public goods – it requires expertise, motivation, and integrity.
Rajan, who referred extensively to social scientist Francis Fukuyama’s work on the emergence of political systems around the world, said the rule of law is needed to prevent the tyranny of the majority that can arise in a democracy. He said it is also necessary to ensure that basic “rules of the game” are preserved over time so that the environment is predictable, no matter which government comes to power.
By ensuring that all citizens have inalienable rights and protections, the rule of law constrains the majority’s behaviour towards the minorities. And by maintaining a predictable economic environment against populist democratic instincts, the rule of law ensures that businesses can invest securely today for the future.
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