Boi Prunes Training Centres To Check Costs

Bank of India (BoI) has restructured its training centres across the country to cut costs. The bank has reduced the number of training centres from 14 to five in the last financial year.

BoI's six staff training colleges at Delhi, Chandigarh, Patna, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Nagpur have been closed down, while the Pune, Ahmedabad and Nerul staff training colleges have been merged with the Management Development Institute (MDI), Belapur (Navi Mumbai).

Among BoI's five training centres that are now operational, the one at Belapur, has been acquired from Indian Bank for Rs 7 crore. This centre now houses BoI's MDI, which was earlier located at Andheri in suburban Mumbai. Indian Bank is believed to have sold off this four-storied centre as part of its strategy to optimise resources.

The five centres, including Bhopal, Noida, Calcutta and Chennai, are taking care of the training needs of the 48 zones of the bank.

"The bank will make substantial savings as establishment costs on account of the erstwhile nine training centres will not be there. Further, we are looking at developing five training institutes as centres of excellence that will not only cater to our internal training requirements but also seek to meet the training needs of other public and co-operative banks," K Ramakrishnan, general manager & principal, MDI, said.

Meanwhile, the bank is expecting to move into its own nine-storied headquarters at the Bandra Kurla Complex from the Express Towers in October. BoI had acquired the land in the financial hub of Mumbai from the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Authority for Rs 112 crore and the construction cost of the building, admeasuring 1,50,000 square feet, is Rs 65 crore.