The Hindu Business Line : RBI staff, officers stir on Aug. 23

Token strike
25,000 employees and officers in 20 offices to participate in strike
The demands of the employees include retention of pension updation scheme, improvement of family pension for those retired from the RBI and upward revision of the pension commutation rate

Kolkata , Aug. 19

The Reserve Bank of India's 25,000 employees and officers in 20 offices all over the country will participate in a day's token strike on August 23, called by the United Forum of Reserve Bank Officers & Employees.

Giving this information to newspersons here on Saturday, Mr Samir Ghosh, General Secretary, All India Reserve Bank Employees Association, said the demands of the employees include retention of pension updation scheme, improvement of family pension for those retired from the RBI and upward revision of the pension commutation rate.

Updation scheme

Mr Ghosh expressed apprehension that the pension updation scheme, introduced by RBI management in November 1997 and benefiting several thousand employees who retired between 1986 and 1997, might be discontinued at the insistence of the Union Government. He wondered how this could happen.

RBI being an autonomous body was quite within its powers to introduce any such updation, especially so when the RBI board, which ratified the scheme, also included Central Government nominees. However, the present top brass of RBI were too weak to resist their voice of protest against the Central Government's move in this regard, Mr Ghosh said.

Family pension

He regretted that although the pension scheme in RBI, introduced in 1990, was similar to that for the Central Government employees, there was a good deal of discrepancy in the family pension as applicable to RBI and Central Government employees.

For the highest executive of RBI, the maximum family pension was Rs 5,800 whereas the same in case of a Central Government employee was Rs 13,000. This anomaly must go, he said.

Also, pension commutation rate should be revised upward from the present 33 per cent to 40 per cent as applicable to Central Government employees, Mr Ghosh added.

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RBI staff, officers stir on Aug. 23