08/04/2013
VRISHTI BENIWAL
New Delhi, 7 April
With public sector banks staring
at huge staff retirement
over the next few years, the
government has decided to relax the
norms for promotions for the current
financial year. The finance ministry has
allowed the banks to deviate from the
prescribed promotion norms, with the
approval of their board, so that more
employees can become eligible for promotions.
However, banks will still need prior
approval of the government for a
change in guidelines on five critical
aspects such as minimum experience
requirement for promotion to next
scale, marks in annual appraisal,
rural/semi-urban experience, length of
service in specialised cadre, and zone of
consideration
Notably, even in these, some degree
of freedom would be given to banks.
For instance, board of banks can provide
further relaxation of three months
in minimum experience requirement.
This relaxation has been provided
recognising that if a person was last
promoted in June, he would not be eligible
for promotion at the beginning of
the next financial year for not having
completed a year.
“On some operational issues regarding
promotions, we
have given them more
freedom. But on core
issues, there will be uniformity
in guidelines
across the banks. On
core elements of the
promotion policy, 80-85
per cent of the norms
stipulated last year
would continue,” said a finance ministry
official.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has
termed the present decade as retirement
decade. In the next 10 years, government-
run banks have to hire in lakhs
to fill up retirements and natural attrition,
to keep their branches and other
operations running. Also, with RBI set
to allow new banks in the country, the
public sector banks is likely to be a
favourite hunting ground for talent for
private sector players.
The ministry has decided to give
bank boards some flexibility to decide
whether the stipulated tenure of
rural/semi-urban experience
is required to be
continuous or in parts.
While the condition for
rural posting will
remain unchanged,
banks can relax condition
in cases where, for
instance, a person was
transferred from the
rural office barely months before completing
his tenure, but had two stints in
the area, thereby meeting the tenure
requirement.
The bank board can relax the
requirement of marks in the annual
performance appraisal ratings to an
average of 75 per cent marks with minimum
60 per cent in the preceding five
years. They can also relax the zone of
consideration to include all officers promoted
on the same date or batch.
“The moment you have too many
conditions, that would mean exclusion.
The new guidelines will not exclude people
and more employees can be considered
for promotions,” said the official.
In the circular issued to the banks on
April 4, the ministry has said that the
reasons for deviations from the guidelines
would have to be properly recorded
in the minutes of board meetings.
The government, through its circulars
in 1986 and 1987, had laid down
guidelines for promotion in public sector
banks. However, banks gradually
started deviating from these norms in
the pretext of fine-tuning them. This
forced the government to issue revised
guidelines in December 2011. Since
then, several relaxations have been
made in the norms to meet HR requirements
of banks.
Finance ministry relaxes staff
promotion norms of govt banks
Finance ministry gives
bank boards the
flexibility to decide
whether the stipulated
tenure of rural/semiurban
experience should
be continuous or in parts
