(This post is, unfortunately, prompted by the recently reported money laundering by a leading public sector bank.)
I had joined a nationalized bank as a DRO a little over four decades ago. At that time, it was the best paying job in the public and most coveted next only to the administrative services. Though, the reasons were not entirely monetary. A bank DRO's total salary in those days exceeded that of a new IAS recruit! Of course, for the latter salary was and remains only one of the many benefits that they enjoy. Yet this shows that bankers were very well paid in those days. They also had access to loans at much softer terms. A good financial package was considered mandatory for the banker. After all, you cannot have a hungry person guarding your food supplies.
In those days of fully manual working a bank officer had to slog a good deal. We had jokes about dogs barking in the midnight signaling the return to home of a bank employee. Yet, the job was considered prestigious and succeeded in attracting the best talent. The minimum qualification for a bank officer was "first class graduate" and the competition was intense.
Of course, directly recruited officers, formed a minuscule percentage of the total workforce in the banking industry and their lateral entry was resented by clerks and promotee officers. But it were these DROs who rose to higher echelons and played a very significant role in transformation of the industry through application of technology and modern management principles and methods.
It was 1973, 4 years after the first round of nationalization, when I joined the industry. The second round came in 1980. The new masters of the industry and the old players of one-up-man-ship, the bureaucrats must have been quite upset with the bankers' pay scales. So they set up a committee called the Pillai committee which put in motion the task of turning bankers into underdogs (pillas in Hindi.) The cunning and conniving leaders of trade unions in banking industry seem to have colluded with the bureaucracy and ensured in each successive wage negotiations a constant decline in the wage parity of bankers vis-a-vis government employees.
Today things have come to a pass where public sector bankers have probably the worst pay scales in any industry. A bank officer starts at a salary which is much lower than what an IAS or PCS recruit draws. It is perhaps the same as that of a school teacher recruited by state governments. Even officers in higher echelons get a much lower salary, perhaps half of their counterparts in the government. The public may find it hard to believe because the fact seldom receives any publicity. The reason could be that any publicity about low wages of bankers will erode public's confidence in banks themselves. But when the reality becomes too harsh for a group it finds its own ways to creep into public conscience.
With the vertically rising costs of education and housing and the prospect of a grossly inadequate pension and medical cover after superannuation, it is no wonder that some of the unfortunate bankers have finally succumbed to a temptation which they were able to ignore or resist earlier. I am not trying to defend their actions in any way or to condone what they have done. Yet, this is what happens when you systematically and persistently starve a class that is supposed to manage and guard humongous amounts of public money.
Bank of Baroda, my employer, used to pride itself on the fact that during its 100+ years of existence, it was never found involved in any scandal. It is painful to see that claim falling flat on its face and yet this was becoming inevitable and the industry should have seen this coming.
I am afraid that things are only going to get worse in the coming days. The pathetic pay scales have ensured that banks are no more able to attract the best manpower but only those who are not even able to become a teacher in a school or a clerk in the government. The recruitment process too is getting vitiated. I shudder to think of what happens as these recruits make their way to the top. And yet, the bankers and the government continue to play deaf to the travails of bankers. Will this incident serve to wake them up? I join in ringing the alarm because my own pension, howsoever low, is at stake.
I had joined a nationalized bank as a DRO a little over four decades ago. At that time, it was the best paying job in the public and most coveted next only to the administrative services. Though, the reasons were not entirely monetary. A bank DRO's total salary in those days exceeded that of a new IAS recruit! Of course, for the latter salary was and remains only one of the many benefits that they enjoy. Yet this shows that bankers were very well paid in those days. They also had access to loans at much softer terms. A good financial package was considered mandatory for the banker. After all, you cannot have a hungry person guarding your food supplies.
In those days of fully manual working a bank officer had to slog a good deal. We had jokes about dogs barking in the midnight signaling the return to home of a bank employee. Yet, the job was considered prestigious and succeeded in attracting the best talent. The minimum qualification for a bank officer was "first class graduate" and the competition was intense.
Of course, directly recruited officers, formed a minuscule percentage of the total workforce in the banking industry and their lateral entry was resented by clerks and promotee officers. But it were these DROs who rose to higher echelons and played a very significant role in transformation of the industry through application of technology and modern management principles and methods.
It was 1973, 4 years after the first round of nationalization, when I joined the industry. The second round came in 1980. The new masters of the industry and the old players of one-up-man-ship, the bureaucrats must have been quite upset with the bankers' pay scales. So they set up a committee called the Pillai committee which put in motion the task of turning bankers into underdogs (pillas in Hindi.) The cunning and conniving leaders of trade unions in banking industry seem to have colluded with the bureaucracy and ensured in each successive wage negotiations a constant decline in the wage parity of bankers vis-a-vis government employees.
Today things have come to a pass where public sector bankers have probably the worst pay scales in any industry. A bank officer starts at a salary which is much lower than what an IAS or PCS recruit draws. It is perhaps the same as that of a school teacher recruited by state governments. Even officers in higher echelons get a much lower salary, perhaps half of their counterparts in the government. The public may find it hard to believe because the fact seldom receives any publicity. The reason could be that any publicity about low wages of bankers will erode public's confidence in banks themselves. But when the reality becomes too harsh for a group it finds its own ways to creep into public conscience.
With the vertically rising costs of education and housing and the prospect of a grossly inadequate pension and medical cover after superannuation, it is no wonder that some of the unfortunate bankers have finally succumbed to a temptation which they were able to ignore or resist earlier. I am not trying to defend their actions in any way or to condone what they have done. Yet, this is what happens when you systematically and persistently starve a class that is supposed to manage and guard humongous amounts of public money.
Bank of Baroda, my employer, used to pride itself on the fact that during its 100+ years of existence, it was never found involved in any scandal. It is painful to see that claim falling flat on its face and yet this was becoming inevitable and the industry should have seen this coming.
I am afraid that things are only going to get worse in the coming days. The pathetic pay scales have ensured that banks are no more able to attract the best manpower but only those who are not even able to become a teacher in a school or a clerk in the government. The recruitment process too is getting vitiated. I shudder to think of what happens as these recruits make their way to the top. And yet, the bankers and the government continue to play deaf to the travails of bankers. Will this incident serve to wake them up? I join in ringing the alarm because my own pension, howsoever low, is at stake.
Anil kumar upadhyaya Ji very analytically in short raising prudent truth of Bankers..
ReplyDeleteI salute Shri Upadhysy for his detailed observations and candid expressions. The present position of the bank employees is truly pathetic. Thebank pensioners are severely ill affected.
ReplyDelete