People's Democracy(Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) |
Vol. XXXIV
No.
34 August 22, 2010 |
STATE
BANK OF
Contract
Officers to be Absorbed as
Regular Cadre
AT
present, as many as 5000 odd agriculture related specialist officers of
the State Bank of India (SBI) are in a sad
plight.
This prime bank of our nation had recruited these officers on contract
basis in
2004.
Though
these officers were recruited on contract basis initially for two years
only, on
a consolidated pay, the duties they are performing, indicated the
excellent
role they have been playing in relation to Indian agriculture.
These
duties include account opening under NREGS, door to door survey to
ensure 100
per cent financial inclusion, educating farmers about various subsidy
schemes
of the government of
As
a matter of fact, it was because of the credible role of these
officers, among
other things, that the agribusiness of the SBI reported increased from
13.50
per cent in 2004 to 18 per cent in 2008. In 2008 alone, these officers
helped
SBI to recover the non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 505 crore.
In
view of their potential, the SBI management trained them for selling
the SBI mutual
funds and SBI life insurance policies also. However, now that six years
have
passed from the day of their recruitment, they are still languishing as
contract
workers, with their future remaining uncertain.
It
is true that with an idea of not losing such cadres of potential, the
SBI management
came out, on and off, with certain ideas of absorbing them as regular
officers
or prescribing exclusive career paths for them. But none of these ideas
was implemented.
The contract officers, who have contributed to the growth of the bank,
are as a
result a disillusioned lot now. As a considerable part of their youth
has been
spent in works related to agriculture alone, they are in the dark as to
how
they would survive in case the SBI decides to jettison them.
The
serious question that arises is this. Should a huge organisation like
the SBI,
that too owned by the government, indulge in an unfair labour practice
while it
ought to have set an example for fair labour practices?
In
view of this situation, T K Rangarajan, a CPI(M) member of Rajya Sabha,
wrote a
letter to Pranab Mukherjee, the union finance minister, on April 2,
asking him
to recognise the excellent work done by these contract officers and
suitably
advise the SBI management to absorb them in its regular cadre. This
will not
only bring cheers to the life of these contract officers, but also
redouble
their productivity, the beneficiary of which will be the SBI and the
nation. On
May 7, he personally met the minister to take up this issue and
reiterated the
demand. Now, it has been learnt that the SBI management has consented
to take
necessary steps to absorb these contract officers in its regular cadre.