‘Banking services will be hit if officers take up election duty’

With bankers being asked to take up election duty, trade unions are worried about branch operations getting affected.

District Election Officers, from different districts in Maharashtra, are assigning election duty to bank employees and officers from public sector banks (PSBs), said Devidas Tuljapurkar, General Secretary, Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation.

“This is likely to affect day-to-day banking services. It may also result in total closure of bank branches during the days of training and election duty,” he added.

Emphasising that banking is a public utility (essential) service, Tuljapurkar, in a letter to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Maharashtra, observed that disruption of banking services may result in a lot of inconvenience to customers at large.

Therefore, the federation has requested the CEO to revisit the decision in order to ensure that banking services are not disrupted.

“We are approaching you purely in the interest of bank customers and people at large with the hope that you will view it in proper spirit,” he elaborated, and added that the Indian Banks’ Association should take up this issue with the Election Commission. Tuljapurkar pointed out that all employees and officers, barring the branch head of a PSB’s South Mumbai branch, had been assigned election duty. So, the functioning of the branch will be affected during Phase 1 and Phase 2 of training for conducting elections.

Previous elections

KS Krishna, General Secretary, All-India State Bank of India Employees’ Association, said bankers’ services had been requisitioned in Kerala during previous elections, especially in remote areas.

“Probably, the commission is roping in bankers as it has more faith in them to be neutral in the electoral process,” he said.

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