Psbs Call For Autonomy In Recruitments

Public sector banks (PSBs) have made a strong pitch for autonomy in making need-based recruitments, even as the July 31 deadline for dismantling the 15 Banking Service Recruitment Boards (BSRBs) is approaching.

Chiefs of various PSBs have made their views known to this effect to the finance ministry brass in their recent deliberations.

"Majority of the 27 PSB chiefs favour autonomy and it is now up to the finance ministry to decide as to what should be the nature and extent of this freedom," official sources said. With the 15 boards making only 3,000 recruitments across the 27 PSBs in the last fiscal, it was felt that the per head cost of recruitment and the time taken did not justify their (BSRBs) existence, they added.

They pointed out that the fear of the bank employees unions of nepotism and red-tapism creeping in was unfounded as these banks will avail of the services of external agencies like the National Institute of Bank Management, the Indian Banking Personnel Selection and other professional personnel search consultants to make the whole process of screening of applications, holding tests (especially at the entry level) and interviewing objective and transparent.

The proposed autonomy will help the PSBs in finding candidates with the right mix of educational qualifications, functional experience and skill sets.

Though these public sector banks will get the requisite autonomy, the moot issue remains whether they can pay best salary packages in the industry and attract the best talent as presently their salary structures are governed by rigid industry-wide agreements, say industry observers.

Salary packages offered by the PSBs are "out of sync" as compared to those offered by private sector and foreign banks and this could act as a dampener in making campus recruitments at management institutes and in attracting chartered accountants and law professionals into the public sector fold, they said.