It refers to the bank-strike for two days on May 30-31, 2018, causing unnecessary difficulties to bank-customers, economy-loss and loss to public-sector banks. Time has come when all public-sector undertakings, autonomous bodies and others where salaries are paid from public-exchequers may have similar pay-structure and post-retirement benefits to be covered by Pay Commission reports. Multiplicity of pay-structures where salary-payments are made from public-exchequers is not proper or justifiable. Even privileged persons like President, Vice President, judges of higher courts and others where salary-revision is done through separate legislations, must also be covered by Pay Commission reports rather than requiring separate legislations passed by Parliament. It is absolutely non-sense and against spirit of recent Supreme Court verdict requiring former UP Chief Ministers losing entitlement for government-bungalows where the Supreme Court rightly observed that separate privileged class of people must not be created. It is evident that presently those getting salary-revisions through separate Parliamentary legislations are a separate privileged class of society created with an extra-ordinary and totally unjustified heavy pay-scales and undue post-retirement privileges. Maximum salary to any one should be equivalent to that of Union Cabinet Secretary.
Any added financial burden bringing bank-employees at par with government-employees can be more than overcome by urgent merger of too many public-sector banks in total six anchor banks including the State Bank of India because saving of large overheads and merger of nearing bank-branches, thus putting a break on fresh appointments in banks.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
