TO ALL AFFILIATES/MEMBERS OF THE STATE UNITS Dear Comrades,
OUR NATIONWIDE STRIKE CALL ON 11.12.2015 CONCILIATION MEETINGS BEFORE DEPUTY CLC/ALC AT MUMBAI HELD ON 15.06.2016
Our members are aware that AIBOC gave a nationwide strike call on 11.12.2015, on the residual issues of our Salary Revision, demands of retirees, Changes in Labour Laws, Industrial Relation Problems in Dhanlaxmi Bank and against Government policies. In response to our strike notice, the Dy. CLC (C) Mumbai held Conciliation meeting on 08.12.2015 at Mumbai and on the specific assurances given by the IBA about removal of anomaly due to fifth stagnation increment, advisory to be issued on not calling officers on Sundays and Holidays, their commitment for reimbursement of domiciliary medical expenses to retirees and consideration of our demands on DA neutralization and revision in family pension, the strike was deferred. Thereafter, the follow up conciliation meetings were held on 15.03.2016, 05.05.2016 and latest on 15.06.2016.
You have already been informed vide our various communications that the issues of anomaly due to fifth stagnation increment and advisory on not calling officers on Sundays and holidays have been resolved. However, we have once again represented to IBA for grant of stagnation increment from 01.11.2012. We reiterated our demand of compensation/ compensatory off, if the officers are called on Sundays and Holidays in emergent circumstances. On the other issues discussed on 15.06.2016, the following developments took place:
On the issues of privatization of Public Sector Banks, pension to all who joined the Banking Industry after 01.04.2010, appointment of Officer / Workmen Directors, IBA categorically told that these issues are not within their jurisdiction. However, ALC asked them to refer these issues to the Government with their recommendations. We requested the ALC to invite the representatives of DFS also in the next meeting for the Government’s views on the issues.
On the issue of DA neutralization for pre 2002 retirees, IBA informed that the figures / information from the member banks have already been received and actuaries are working on that. They hope to receive the cost implications from the actuaries in next 10-12 days, the issue will be placed before Management Committee for taking appropriate decision.
On the issue of revision in family pension also, the IBA informed that the IBA is working on that, however, no commitment is possible at this juncture.
On the issue of vacancies of Officer / Workmen Directors on the boards of majority Public Sector Banks, we very strongly put forth the need for our representatives on the boards. We made it very clear that any decision taken by incomplete boards will have wider ramifications. We also made it explicitly clear if the vacancies on the boards are not filled forth with, AIBOC may go on strike only on this single issue.
With regard to the issue of Industrial Relation problem in Dhanlaxmi Bank, the ALC advised that IBA should persuade Dhanlaxmi Bank to resolve the issue amicably. He also suggested that Dhanlaxmi Bank Management should also be made a party to the dispute.
We, by our written communication, requested the ALC to conclude the proceedings and file a failure report as no satisfactory action has been taken by IBA so far so that we can restart our agitation including strike. However the ALC once again asked the IBA to look into the demands and take up the issues with respective Government departments / Ministry /individual banks in order to sort out the issues. The proceedings were adjourned to 18.07.2016 with a direction to IBA to take up those issues which are not within their control with the individual banks and the Government.
We shall keep you apprised of the developments.
With warm greetings,
Comradely yours,
(HARVINDER SINGH) GENERAL SECRETARY
A new chapter was added in this struggle by a unique initiative taken by our Confederation, which is the first of its kind. The Officer Nominee Directors of seven Public Sector Banks, viz. Com. Harvinder Singh - Bank of India; Com. G.V. Manimaran - Canara Bank; Com. Dilip Saha - Punjab National Bank; Com. Harshavardhan M. - State Bank of Hyderabad; Com. Sanjay Manjrekar - Syndicate Bank; Com. Ekanath Baliga - Corporation Bank and Com. Deepak D. Samant - Indian Bank, representing the AIBOC fraternity met Mr. Raghuram Rajan, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, on 10th June, 2016 and had a long fruitful discussion.
A detailed representation expressing our deep concern on the state of Indian Banking System in general and Public Sector Banks in particular highlighting the reasons attributable to the present grave situation of Banking Sector, various suggestions for redressing the issues with a request of his intervention, was submitted to him prior to the meeting to ensure quality time for discussion. The discussions lasted for more than fifty minutes covering various aspects that have been crippling the functioning of the PSBs, thereby, bringing undeserving disrepute and unwarranted criticism on them.
The Governor was accompanied by Shri N.S.Vishwanathan, Executive Director, Shri Vivek Chaturvedi, Executive Assistant to the Governor and Shri Sudarshan Sen, Chief General Manager. At the outset, the Governor welcomed the team of AIBOC Representatives and asked to initiate the discussions.
Initiating the discussions, AIBOC presented the following:
The PSBs have done their best in the last more than five decades. With geographical spread of the branches across the country, their contribution to the economic growth of the country has been immense with implementation of the Governmental policies etc. Their contribution has been recognized and praised by several sections and remain unparalleled. But a few recent announcements and pronouncements have shown the PSBs in poor light, derided the morale of the employees and shaken the confidence of the public.
The 2008 Raghuram Rajan Committee Report (A Hundred Small Steps) and the 2009 World Bank Report had appreciated the PSBs of India. The same reports had predicted the future of banking in India and the suggestions given therein are presently being implemented to the detriment of PSBs’ efficiency despite the fact that PSBs still transact 70% of Indian banking.
Merger of PSBs need not be pushed forward when PSBs are already grappling for survival in the aftermath of mounting NPAs, higher Provisioning and Asset Quality Review, which would only be adding to their woes.
Consequent to the economic downturn in 2008, it was witnessed that the Indian Corporates had to rely upon the PSBs to fund their business activities as they could not generate financial assistance from abroad which they had been enjoying so far. Similarly, the infrastructure financing for road laying, power generation are supposed to be taken care by the Government through budgetary allocations, whereas, in the absence of such budgetary support, various projects set up by way of Public Private Partnership (PPP) model are supported through financing by Public Sector Banks. Thus it may be inferred that the lending to corporate sector and to infrastructure projects, which was the need of the country at that time for its economic development, were taken care by Public Sector Banks, especially after 2009 and is costing the banks very dearly today.
The political and Government administrative machineries are exerting undue pressure on Branch Heads/ officers for achieving unrealistic targets set for extending various facilities including credits, under various Government schemes. The Branch Managers are being threatened with filing of FIRs etc. against them for non-compliance.
The issue of interference and fear of CVC/ CBI in decision making process of Bank Management was discussed to stress the need to bring the PSB employees out of the clutches of CBI and CVC with a view to boost the confidence of bankers to carry out
the Banks’ business. The staff accountability must be an exclusive zone of operation of the Banks’ Managements.
In response, the Governor, RBI stated the following:
a. PSBs have done well in the past; but today, NPAs have brought in some issues of difficulty. The Private Sector Banks burnt their fingers in 2007-08 and were at the receiving end then. Today, the PSBs are facing the similar situation.
b. Going forward, we need more expertise in PSBs. Our assessment is that PSBs went into some areas of business without ability to assess viability due to lack of experience / expertise. We have to bring professional management in the Bank Boards
c. Mergers are likely to bring in new set of issues. There is a strong view in Government that there must be a few strong banks. For this good banks with management capabilities must take control of weak banks and make the entire banking system operate well. The Government intends that there should be a few large banks, few medium sized banks and few small banks.
d. Let us first clean up the Banks’ Balance Sheets and then think about the rest. State Bank and its group of subsidiaries have several commonalities. Hence the merger of SBI associates may not pose much difficulty whereas, there are several issues in respect of merger of other PSBs, which needs to be addressed and this may take some time.
e. Competition is going to increase manifold in the days to come. With the new generation Private Banks growing at a phenomenal rate, pressure will be on the PSBs to maintain their business. They would have to develop strategies to compete with the Private Banks.
f. PSBs are facing another threat of crunch of manpower at middle levels due to the large size retirements. This coupled with lack of experience at the junior levels needs to be tackled. There is an urgent need to impart better training.
g. PSBs must develop project evaluation skills. It is not advisable for the banks to depend on external agencies for project evaluation. Forensic Audit or feasibility study got done from them or at a later stage will not have desired results. It is truly surprising in our system that there is no fool-proof method of monitoring project implementation. Promoters are taking advantage of it by securing additional funding through the route of increasing projected capacities time and again. It must be made mandatory not to extend finance for expansion without commencement of the initial project operations.
h. Thrust must be on for cleaning up on one side and call the borrowers for negotiation and force repayment on them. Growth in PSBs had been relatively very low. This
needs to be improved upon. The Government needs to pump in capital – in more quantity – for better growth. Growth must be healthy henceforth.
i. Period after the tougher 2016-17 will be very reassuring. As we recover from the present problematic projects, PSBs will have better days ahead. It must be ensured that Market value of PSB shares keeps pace with the book-value.
j. The RBI will certainly take up with the CVC, CBI functionaries in the presence of a few PSB chiefs to sort out the surveillance issues in the forthcoming meeting.
AIBOC requested the following actions on the part of the Controller to help improve the functioning of PSBs:
I. Revisiting the (non - statutory) provisioning on CDR/SDR assets, teaser loans, Commercial Real Estate Loans, Priority and MSME Loans and Standard Assets.
II. Prevailing upon the Government to appoint the Officer Directors in all PSBs (presently, only eight PSBs have Officer Nominee Directors representing officers as against ninteen).
III. Prevailing upon the Government for rationalization of payment of Income Tax on provisions made on NPAs.
ISSUES OF DHANALAXMI BANK
The undersigned handed over a separate Memorandum to the Governor highlighting the Corporate Governance concerns, Human Resource mismanagement and deteriorating financial position of Dhanlaxmi Bank, which has incurred loss for the last three consecutive fiscals. He also pointed out the genesis of the problem as Whistle blowing by the General Secretary of the Officers’ Organisation of the Bank, harassment meted out to him and termination of his services by the Management. A specific demand was made to merge Dhanalaxmi Bank with some Public Sector Bank in order to protect the interests of the customers, investors as well as of the employees. While acknowledging the concerns of the AIBOC, the Governor promised to look into the issue.
At the end, the Governor appreciated the concerns raised by us and assured to address them appropriately. He reassured his commitment to take care of Public Sector Banks and protect their image.
With warm greetings,
Comradely yours,
(HARVINDER SINGH) GENERAL SECRETARY
Bank unions to go ahead with strike on July 12-13-Hindu Business Line
Bank employees will go ahead with their nationwide strike on July 12-13, a top AIBEA official said.
This follows the conciliation meeting convened by the chief labour commissioner failing to yield any results, C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) told BusinessLine.
On the first day, July 12, all the employees of five associate banks will strike work. Next day, employees from all banks will participate in the strike, Venkatachalam added.
The strike call had been given to oppose the closure of associate banks and their merger with State Bank of India. Bank unions are all opposed to proposed privatisation of IDBI Bank.
Nation-wide bank strike slated for July 12, 13-The Hindu
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Banking operations throughout the country will come to a grinding halt on July 12 and 13, as the conciliatory talks between the management and the bank unions failed on Friday.
A meeting was convened by the Chief Labour Commissioner in New Delhi to stall the nation-wide protest through conciliation talks. It was attended by the representatives of All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers’ Association (AIBOA) and State Sector Bank Employees’ Association (SSBEA), Department of Financial Services, Indian Banks Association and executives from five Associate banks.
Talking to The Hindu, AIBEA General Secretary, C.H. Venkatachalam said: “On the first day, the strike will be observed by the employees of Associate Banks and on the second day 45,000 employees of all banks will take part in the strike. It is a nation-wide strike call.”
“We were ready to defer the strike, if the proposed merger of Associate Banks with SBI and the proposed privatisation of IDBI Bank were put on hold and discussions were held on all the issues. However, there was no positive response from their side.
“Hence, we call upon our members to go ahead with the strike programme,” he said.
Needed, a foolproof system to verify bank customers’ data: CVC-Business Line-10th July 2016
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Central Vigilance Commissioner KV Chowdary is in favour of putting in place a network of systems for bank officials to verify the genuineness of data provided to them in KYC forms.
“While there are norms as to what are the things to be taken into account while taking a person as a customer, that you loosely call KYC, in the implementation of it, there are a number of shortcomings,” he told newspersons here on Friday.
Banks, at present, do not have an online facility to verify the documents given to them as there is a possibility of frauds submitting a fabricated or morphed identity proof, like PAN card or driving licence, he said.
“I take it, in bona fide belief, that the paper given to me is the right paper. If there is connivance, we can punish the bank manager. But, if he is being cheated, he is himself the subject of the fraud. He is not the creator of the fraud.
“So, we need to bring systems in place, where a document is produced, there should be an easy and quick way of verification of that document with reference to the original. If that is not done, then frauds will keep on happening,” Chowdary said.
Having a copy of Aadhaar card helps, but the bank officials should have a methodology by which they can access the Aadhaar system and verify the correctness of the data.
“So, that kind of a networking of various databases is required if the system is to be foolproof,” he said.
Chowdary was speaking on the sidelines of the 13th anniversary of Vigilance Study Circle, a professional body established here to spread awareness on vigilance and to improve the knowledge and skills of vigilance professionals.
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