Uco Turnaround Plan Next Week
The board of Uco Bank, on instructions from the centre, will put forward a detailed plan for the banks turnaround at its next meeting to be held on February 19.
The meeting was initially scheduled for February 21.
The meeting will also discuss the controversial wage freeze issue which has, over the past two weeks, brought the bank under a cloud.
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The management has also decided to change the venue of the meeting from Thiruvananthapuram to Calcutta after the bank unions charged them with wasteful expenditure.
The Calcutta-based bank is currently steeped in the red with its non-performing assets (NPAs) position standing at a high of Rs 1,275 crore on advances of Rs 4,598 crore indicating a gross NPA of 28 per cent. The bank, despite setting an ambitious target for the recovery of its non-performing assets, has fallen drastically short of it.
Uco Bank was able to recover only Rs 40 crore during the first half of the financial against its target of Rs 180 crore for the year.
Uco Bank executive director, M M Vaish, is, however, hopeful of recovering the balance Rs 140 crore though there are barely 45 days to go before the close of the financial year.
With the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) asking losing banks to cut down on its staff strength, Uco Bank might be the first bank to be asked to implement this. The bank is currently saddled with a surplus staff of 6,800. The bank unions, that were instrumental in the reconsideration of the wage freeze, will be meeting in Mumbai today (Friday) to discuss certain important issues.
Unions that would be present for the meeting would be Bank Employees Federation of India (Befi), All India Bank Officers Confederation (Aiboc), All India Bank Employees Association (Aibea) and the All India Bank Officers Association (Aiboa) among others.
The issues that would be taken up for discussion would be private area local banks, non-implementation of pension fund in private sector banks, regional rural banks, the wage freeze issue at Uco Bank and the State Bank of Indias (SBI) recent directive to its branches not to accept letters of credit from five loss making banks.