The Hindu Business Line : More PSU bank officers may be off CVC purview

PUBLIC sector banks can hope for more freedom in the days to come with the Ministry of Finance strongly backing the industry's demand for taking out more layers of senior officers out of the purview of Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

The Ministry would soon initiate further talks with the Commission to determine the extent to which the unshackling has to be done during this round. At present, officials from Scale-V and above come under the ambit of the CVC probe.

The issue of removing some more layers of officers from the CVC's jurisdiction had originally been planned as part of the new autonomy package for PSU banks that was unveiled recently.

However, it was ultimately dropped since it was felt that more discussions were required with the CVC before a final announcement could be made.

"We are strongly in favour of removing more officers out of the CVC probe. For this we would be holding more talks with the CVC in the days to come," senior Finance Ministry officials said.

It is understood that the Ministry would ideally want officers right up to the General Manager level to be out of the CVC's ambit which would leave only the board-level officials, including the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) and the Executive Directors (ED), under the Vigilance Commission's shadows.

When contacted to get the Commission's views on the matter, the Central Vigilance Commissioner, Mr P. Shankar, refused to comment on the issue.

"I do not discuss these issues (with anybody other than the authorities concerned)," Mr Shankar told Business Line.

However, Finance Ministry officials said that there was justification in the banking industry's demand that their senior officers be allowed to conduct transactions without the fear of possible future action by the CVC in the event loans turn into bad debts.

"There may be several reasons beyond the control of the officer for which a loan turns into a non-performing asset. If we want public sector banks to perform on par with private banks, then we have to remove the fear of being hauled up from the minds of PSU bank officials," officials said.

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