State Bank of India has sought papers pertaining to arrest of an employee at associate State Bank of Travancore (SBT) suspect to be a rapist on run.

The bank is in the process of compiling records, Ranjit Thomas, Chief Manager-Public Relations at SBT, told Business Line here.

MASS RECRUITMENT

This is a ‘one in a million’ case may have been waiting to happen given mass recruitments undertaken by pubic sector units, he said.

This calls for a serious review of procedures followed currently for verifying credentials of a recruit.

It is up to the Central Recruitment Board, which handles recruitments into SBI and associate banks, to take a call.

The board verifies identity and credentials by comparing originals of those who make the grade at the qualifying test/interview.

Once these are checked, recruits are allocated to various associate banks which collect only attested copies of testimonials.

CHECKING CREDENTIALS

While central board checks passport, PAN cards and other testimonials, cross-checking with issuing authorities is next to impossible, Thomas said.

Applying this rigour to tens of thousands of recruits taken in at a time would take a lot of time to get over with.

It will not be fair to delay joining-in merely because the prospective employer is unable to get the recruit’s identity right.

SPEEDING UP

“What we can do best now is to speed up the process of police verification,” Thomas said.

Banks can also write to collectors of districts from where the new recruit claims to hail from and check his/her permanent address.

Currently, police verification takes anything from three months to a couple of years to complete.

The arrested person was serving as a probationary officer at the SBT branch at Madayi in North Kerala.

vinson.kurian@thehindu.co.in

More Like This

Published on March 10, 2013