Syndicate Bank staff assn proposes campus recruitment to address manpower shortage

The Syndicate Bank Staff Association (SBSA) has suggested campus recruitment as a one-time measure in view of acute shortage of manpower in the banking industry.

SBSA, an affiliate of Bharathiya Mazdoor Sangh, floated the suggestion at its meeting held here recently.

Mr K. S. Bhat, secretary, SBSA told Business Line that shortage of manpower had forced unscientific recruitment practices in banks.

Monitoring of loan accounts

Bank branches are unable to properly monitor and do regular follow-up of loan accounts at regular intervals as they used to do for decades now.

This, he said, could be one main reason why non-performing assets have been growing on banks’ books in recent times.

Proper and regular monitoring of loan accounts and sending demand notice to defaulters are more effective than random recovery campaign here.

Random recovery

“Random recovery is much like an antibiotic treatment, which kills the pain and not its cause/reason.”

It also helps raise the liability of the borrower as the banks are charging heavy service charges such as taxi charges and personal expenses of the recovery personnel to the borrowers.

Some of the recovery personnel view their work as an incentive and as an opportunity to avoid from the responsibilities from internal work, Mr Bhat said.

Default of loans

Lack of proper briefing of borrowers on conditions at the time of sanctioning of loans is another reason for the default of loans.

Frequent changes in interest rates as per RBI directives and failure to update borrowers on the change of (higher) interest and EMI could also drive NPAs in housing and personnel loan accounts of the salaried class.

Core banking solution

Core banking solution has failed even branch heads in tracking those accounts which would become NPAs the next day — some due to technical faults and others by its failure to spot them.

Frequent changes in policies by the top hierarchy are another area of concern with respect to performance of some banks.

Controlling authorities are neglecting the branches and least priority is given to their functioning, Mr Bhat said.

It is unfortunate that instead of supporting branches by providing efficient and adequate personnel, administrative offices of banks are happy gathering data and statistics.

vinson.kurian@thehindu.co.in