The All India Bank Officers Confederation has urged Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to revisit the criteria for selection of managing directors (MD) and chief executive officers of a few public sector undertaking banks as the conditions bar all the serving executive directors/MDs of Public Sector Unit (PSU) banks from applying to the posts.
In a letter to Mr. Jaitley on Wednesday, Federation General Secretary Harvinder Singh said by fixing 15 years service in the mainstream banking industry with three years on the Board and age between 45 and 55, the government had disowned the entire responsibility for the present deplorable state of the PSU banks.
‘Inferior management’
The quality of management was poor and executive directors of the banks, even after more than three decades experience in PSU banks, were inferior to those with 15 years experience, he said.
They were offered a flexible salary package while existing executive directors and MDs were paid fixed salaries irrespective of performance of their undertakings.
The pool of these executive directors had not only withstood vagaries of all political rulers, but also withstood the ever hanging sword of Central Vigilance Commission and Central Bureau of Investigation on their day-to-day commercial decisions, Mr. Singh said.
While these directors along with a committed team of officials and field staff earnestly implemented various government schemes including the Prime Minister’s Jan Dhan Yojana, the role of private sector banks was minimal, he said.
‘Cultural gaps’
As per the new guidelines, persons with lesser experience and from a different work culture would lead to create cultural gaps and create unrest in the PSU banks.
The need of the hour was to protect executives of PSU banks from the menace of vigilance and undue pressure from all quarters and then offer them higher pay package, he said.
Mr. Singh demanded that selection of MDs and CEOs be made first from the existing incumbents and if vacancies still remained, outside candidates may be considered. In any case, the pay package of existing MDs of PSU banks should not be less than that of managers taken from outside, he said.
‘Selection criteria disowns credentials of serving executive directors’
