With reference to “Public sector bankers plan to ask Finance Ministry for five-day week” (April 19), only Central government employees in Delhi have a five-day week.

Neither are post-offices across India closed on Saturdays nor are government schools in the country.

Private banks in India are moving to six-, and even seven-day weeks for some branches while public sector banks want a five-day week. The way out is to consolidate public sector banks into six or seven larger entities.

Only then can the bank branches and number of employees be rationalised.

No doubt, the work culture of public sector banks has improved considerably over the past 10 years; but it is not yet time for a five-day week.

Harri

Mathura

It is virtually impossible to get jobs done without visiting bank branches except for routine transactions like cash withdrawal, ordering a cheque-book or statement query.

Be it for KYC form submission, PPF updation, or any non-routine issue, one has to go to the branch. How can those who work the same five days a week visit during banking hours, is the practical problem.

One possible alternative could be to keep Saturday or Sunday as a working day and designate a week-day as a bank holiday.

Otherwise, some branches must work till 8 pm, even if with reduced staff, as certain private banks do. Some of them start work late — say, 11 am.

Mohit Gupta

New Delhi

Nearly 60 per cent of population has no access to banking. Majority of customers still need a direct interface with their banker. Technology absorption is low.

Customer education for use of technology, even for elementary transactions, is zero. Bank employees get around 33 days of privilege leave, 12 days of sick leave, around 20 days of declared holidays (of this, 15 days fall on week-days) a year. If the five-day week is resorted to, banks will be closed for 125 days and additionally 45 days of availed leave per employee.

Banks need to reduce the various leaves and declared holidays. Employees are stressed because of poor training, out-of-date operating procedures and zero motivation. Before the five-day week is implemented, banks need to extensively re-engineer their processes.

You cannot run a Formula I race with 1950 engine. What is the point of a shorter work week if officers continue to sit late hours and need to come in on holidays to carry out ‘repair’ /pending work arising from operational inefficiency?

Venkataraman

Hyderabad

May increase efficiency

One important point being missed is the huge amount that will be saved in terms of fuel consumption and commuting expenses incurred by bank employees for four days a month, assuming that the average amount an employee shells out on travel is ₹100 a day. There will also be big savings in power and other expenditure by banks.

Sohan Inder

Chandigarh

This is a great move. It will bring in a gigantic change in the banking sector, especially in customer service and work efficiency of bank employees.

Brajesh Shankar

Kharar

CAG audit

Apropos the editorial “CAG in the wheel” (April 21), there’s really nothing wrong with the Supreme Court decision. There has been no consistency on what the telecom companies report as turnover. Different numbers have been submitted different purposes. With a number of them being in the private (non-listed) space, the absence of checks and balances is glaring. What is wrong in wanting to verify if the share of a private enterprise having a revenue-sharing arrangement with the Government has been correctly arrived at?

Sudakar

e-mail

The judgement should be welcomed as being in the interest of the general public, given its objective of preventing any revenue loss.

Rajan Karunakaran

Bangalore

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