Celebrating the family

I strongly believe our concept of family is one of the most important institutions to be celebrated as it nourishes us with compassion, caring and sharing with our fellow humans in our society. It is high time our school education includes family values and responsibilities as part of its curriculum.

Our Vice-President has stressed on the importance of preserving our joint- family system which is already on the waning path. Our patriarchs and matriarchs may ink a new harmonious framework of family to inspire our new generation.

Chennai

With reference to ‘Banks shouldn’t be saddled with other roles” (May 15), the writer hits the nail on the head by identifying some key factors that has contributed to the highly worrisome state of affairs of the PSBs in India. One tends to agree with his remarks that the government has started treating the public sector banks like government departments by assigning various government tasks to them. However, as regards the multi-faceted role of the PSBs, it’s felt that the government might have walked into the shoes of the private sector banks with an intent to usher in their innovative and highly competitive work culture among the employees of PSBs too. It’s a different matter that during the process of vastly expanding their ‘operational’ zones, it has failed to suitably hone up their technical skills.

It’s ironical that the PSBs, with their hands tied to their back owing to government’s constant intervention, could neither do justice with their core banking functions nor effectively compete with their private sector counter-parts in respect of various non-banking activities . Lastly, the multiplicity of regulators can’t be justified as these multiple masters could possibly go on to add some more salt to their self-inflicted wounds instead of healing them. Mind you, an old saying quite aptly says that 'A jack of all trade is master of none'. So how could our PSBs be?

New Delhi

Without appreciating the difference between ownership and management, the government thrust banks with multiple-activities, that are not directly linked to the basic purpose of banking.

Apart from financing infrastructure and long-term projects, requiring in-depth analysis and intensive follow up, commercial banks were directed to handle demonetisation, Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar linkages, which are labour intensive besides being highly non-remunerative. How can banks, with high staff turnover owing to perceived better opportunities, manage these additional activities?

It is high time that authorities concerned divest banks of their non-core activities to ensure better overall management,

Bengaluru

With reference to ‘Reality check for fastest growing economy’ (May 15), our envious demographic dividend is increasingly getting deleveraged without jobs to sustain it. Compound annual growth rate of employment has decelerated from 2.8 per cent between 1999 and 2004 to 0.5 per cent between 2004 and 2011 and the workforce has grown at almost 2 per cent annually between 1999 and 2011 to 47.5 crore. Even as more than 50 per cent of labour force depends on agriculture, that contributes only 14 per cent to the GDP.

Main job creation lies in private domain and the picture here is dim. Growth in capital formation was 5.1 per cent during 1990–1995, peaked at 17.5 per cent during 2004–08, but slowed down thereafter, reporting a growth of 4.3 per cent during 2012–16. Though public sector investment improved, private sector investment in manufacturing declined from 19.2 per cent in 2011–2012 to 16.8 per cent in 2014–15. Even investment in agriculture and construction sectors are in down turn, affecting job creation. Added to this uncertainty is the “retrospective tax” on businesses!

Navi Mumbai

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