'Reduction in clerical staff hiring in banks is part of a design'

Central government owned banks' plan to hire 7,883 clerical staff next fiscal is inadequate when compared to the growth in business and the number of accounts, said a top leader of All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA).

"This seems to be a part of a design to reduce the intake of clerical staff. Despite growth in business (deposits and advances) since 2013-14, the recruitment of clerical staff in government owned banks is coming down," C.H.Venkatachalam, General Secretary told IANS.

Venkatachalam said 13 public sector banks have indented a total of 7,883 clerical staff while some banks have not asked for any.

He said in 2013-14 the government banks hired 84,680 clerical staff and this number has been going down over the years.

When pointed the reduction in manual work with computerisation of operations, fall in branch footfalls due to automatic teller machines (ATM), growth in digital payments he said: "We have opened around 30 lakh Jan Dhan accounts which has added workload."

"The banking transaction time for customers has increased which results in branch staff leaving at around 7 p.m. Though the operations have been computerised, the systems are slow. It takes long time to close the day's ledger accounts," Venkatachalam said.

"No bank is willing to issue a circular that staff need not stay in the branch after office hours," he added.

According to him, many of the regular bank jobs are being outsourced which needs to be stopped.

--IANS

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