The finance ministry has asked all public sector financial intermediaries to take cognisance of the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic situation and take appropriate steps to ensure that the promotion process factors in the constraints likely to be faced by their officers and staff.

The ministry emphasised that the officers and staff of the public sector financial intermediaries -- public sector banks (PSBs), public sector insurance companies (PSICs) and financial institutions (FIs) -- may be given adequate opportunity for participating in the promotion process.

Postponement of the promotion process may also be considered, it added.

The promotion process has coincided with a spike in Covid-19 cases across the country, along with lockdown/curfew and increase in micro-containment zones.

There also cases of bank employees or their family members being hospitalised due to Covid-19 infection.

When the Covid-19 pandemic set in last year, some of the public sector financial intermediaries went online for conducting promotion interviews.

Sanjeev K Bandlish, Convenor, United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), in a letter to the finance ministry, said: “In the current wave that is sweeping across the nation, we are distressed to note that already several bank employees and officers have died. It is shocking to note that some of them could not even get admitted to hospitals due to the dearth of beds.”

Govt should usher in five-day week

Bandlish sought reduced working hours, five-day banking and exemption from duty to employees with existing comorbidities, pregnant employees/officials, persons with disabilities (Divyangjan), among others.

Referring to the Centre recently declaring every Saturday as a public holiday for the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in the run up to its initial public offer, KS Krishna, General Secretary, All India SBI Employees’ Association, observed that bank employees too should get relief in the form of five-day week amid the raging pandemic.

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