With State Bank of India getting Cabinet nod to acquire its five associate banks, the latter will soon come out with a golden handshake scheme to provide ‘a good opportunity to employees who may genuinely want to retire voluntarily on account of uncertainties related to possible relocation and change of job profile, post-acquisition’.

The voluntary retirement scheme (VRS) would be open to all permanent award staff and officers of the bank, except those specifically mentioned as ‘ineligible’, who have put in 20 years of service or have completed 55 years of age as on November 30, 2016, going by the in-principle approval granted by SBI’s central board for the scheme.

As of December-end 2016, the five associate banks —State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Travancore — had 73,268 employees on their rolls.

The total number comprises 27,648 officers, award staff (45,620), clerks (30,664) and subordinate staff (10,728).

The staff member whose request for retirement under VRS has been accepted will be paid an ex-gratia amounting to 50 per cent of salary for the residual period of service (up to the date of superannuation), subject to a maximum of 30 months salary. Salary for the purpose would include basic pay, stagnation increment, professional qualification allowance, special pay and dearness allowance.

Other benefits include gratuity as payable under the extant instructions, provident fund contribution as per the bank’s PF rules (for PF optees), pension in terms of the bank’s PF rules, including commuted value of pension (for pension optees) and encashment of balance privilege leave, as applicable. The outflow (of employees) will be controlled according to the bank’s administrative requirements. Towards this end, the bank will retain the discretion to limit the number of employees allowed to retire in each category of staff to be covered under VRS. As such, the bank will have the sole discretion as to the acceptance/ rejection of the request for voluntary retirement under VRS depending on its requirements.

Employees who fulfil criteria the relating to academic/professional qualifications and/ or those to whom special skills and training has been imparted in the last five years would not be eligible under the VRS scheme.

So, employees with academic/ professional qualifications (doctorate/MBA, Chartered Accountant/ Cost Accountant/ Chartered Financial Analyst), PG in Computer Science/ IT, professionals certified in risk management/ CISA – provided reimbursement/ honorarium claimed from the bank; those who received training abroad (minimum two weeks) or training at top-notch business schools (minimum three months), would not be eligible for the VRS.

Further, employees who have held assignments such as chief dealer/ dealer in money/ forex, project finance, risk management, asset liability management, and IT department will also not be eligible for the VRS.

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