Opposition To Sbi Arm Shifting Gains Momentum

The All-India federations of officers and staff of the State Bank of India have strongly come out in support of the move to resist shifting the banks foreign exchange dealing operations from here to Mumbai. This has added a new dimension to the movement being conducted by the unions.

The federations feel the inter-city rearrangement of the functioning of the foreign exchange department is totally unnecessary in view of the satellite communications that links the major centres of SBI. The move to shift the forex dealing operations to Mumbai is therefore uncalled for.

Shanta Raju, general secretary of the SBI Officers Federation, has in a message to the bank chairman said the present arrangement of keeping different departments in different cities should not be disturbed. Similar views have also been expressed by the All India SBI Staff Federation. Incidentally, Raju and Vengopal Reddy, vice-president of the staff federation addressed a protest meeting yesterday at the city premises of SBIs foreign exchange department. Though Raju expressed confidence that the SBI management would not proceed with the plan to take away the basic forex dealing from Calcutta to Mumbai his colleagues here made it clear that they were prepared to go on strike to stop the move.

Raju also contested the official stand by saying that in an era of fast communication there was no need to bring under one roof the treasury and forex operations. Ashoke Das of the SBI Staff Association sought to demolish the management stand that the bank would have earned higher profits if both operations were functioning from one centre. The management is reported to have said that SBI would have earned Rs 70 crore more last year had both operations been conducted from Mumbai as decision-making would have been expedited.

Das claimed that by posting a deputy managing director at the citys foreign exchange department the decision-taking mechanism could have been brought up to the desired level.