Council Finds Pnb Overstaffed

The national productivity council (NPC), which was engaged by the Punjab National Bank (PNB) to assess its branch-wise manpower situation, has indicated that most of the bank's branches have surplus staff.

Sources indicated that PNB might introduce its second round of voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) in the next couple of months.

S S Kohli, chairman and managing director, PNB, was unavailable for comment. At present the bank has a manpower strength of 57,859 out of which 17,500 were declared surplus. Excess staff in the bank's eastern region branches was put at 500, except Midnapore, where the NPC has found a shortage of 22.

 

On the basis of the report submitted by NPC, PNB took a strategy of promoting its clerical staff to the post of officers, thus bringing down the number of 'award' staff at the bank while increasing number of officers.

PNB has already initiated the process of promoting clerks to the officers grade. The first round of interviews for the purpose has been completed. The bank will probably promote more than 1,000 clerks to the officers grade.

Nevertheless, with an average work span of 34 years for each employee, as much as 50 per cent of employees will retire in the next few years. Thus with super annuation and a 30 per cent outgo as a result of the VRS, the total reduction in manpower strength at PNB would be substantial.

In its recent VRS, the bank saw an outgo of 5,883 employees and the ratio of officers and employees were balanced, bringing down its manpower strength from 64,733 to 58,309 in 2001.

The employees' union in the bank has been protesting the management's move. The general secretary of the PNB Employees Union, Swapan Ghosh, said, "Promoting clerks to the officers grade will weaken their position as officers are not under the purview of the Industrial Dispute Act and trade union laws."

The labour leader claimed that "employees were not averse to ideas such as Sunday banking, extended banking hours, and were even ready to go for marketing drives, but the management has decided to reduce its workforce by as much as 30 per cent instead".

The labour unions said they were worried by the huge increase in other provision for contingencies in the bank's books from Rs 370 crore in 2000-01 to Rs 712.26 crore in 2001-02.

Capital adequacy ratio rose marginally to 10.7 per cent against 10.24 per cent in the same period. The rise in contingencies may be used to justify the second VRS, they said.