The Pensioners and Retirees Association of the multi-crore fraud-hit Punjab National Bank (PNB) has called upon the central government to initiate "confidence building exercise" as recent developments have "demoralised bankers" and underminned the importance of state-owned lenders in the country's economy.
The demand comes after the investigating agencies probing the multi-crore Nirav Modi scam had named officials at all levels of the second largest public sector lender in their initial chargesheet.
According to All India PNB Pensioners and Retirees Association: "Naming officials at all levels for sanctioning loans, in cases of accounts turning NPA (non-performing assets) is very disturbing as any loan account turning bad depends on so many factors, which may not be directly attributed to them."
Recently, top executives of PNB have been implicated in a fraud committed by Nirav Modi by "influencing few of the employees of the bank".
"This is also very damaging... that they have been implicated for non-implementation of certain guidelines on SWIFT system issued in 2016," read the association's letter sent to the management on May 20 that has been reviewd by IANS.
"It is also a fact that these guidelines were not implemented in most of the banks and RBI has given revised deadline for implementation of these guidelines on SWIFT system in April 2018."
The letter cited that "non-implementation of any guidelines cannot be treated even as misconduct", leave aside the criminal offence.
"It seems that decisions are being taken in haste, without considering its impact on importance of banks in the economy and in absolute disregard to set principles and morale of bank officials," the letter said.
"Bankers are feeling insecure and we urge upon the government to initiate the confidence building exercise without further loss of time, so that bankers start taking decisions confidently," the letter added.
--IANS
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