Retired bank employees of public sector banks have expressed strong disappointment and concern over the delay in implementing a revision of their pension which has been pending for over three decades. A coordination committee of the All Kerala Bank Retirees Forum points out that the inordinate delay has affected the quality of lives of about 7,74,515 people in the country because of the increased cost of living.
“Though six periodical wage revisions have been implemented in the banking industry whenever it became due after the introduction of the pension scheme, the pension was never revised by bankers on the alibi that the present corpus of pension fund is insufficient to meet the cost of pension revision,” says K.T. Babu, a functionary of the coordination committee.
Functionaries of the organisation say the irony in the banking industry is that an employee who retired as general manager during 2001 in a public sector bank draws less pension than a clerical or even subordinate staff (class III and class IV) who retires now. A general manager retired during 2001 is getting a gross pension of ₹35,640 now, whereas a clerk retired during July 2022 is drawing a pension ₹49,053. The general manager should be receiving ₹85,000 as monthly gross pension now. The bank does not have to shoulder any burden in implementing pension revision as the corpus fund is sufficient and more, they claim.
“As the very survival of lakhs of retired bank employees solely depends upon the revision of pension, we appeal to all democratic forces and the powers to concede this most justifiable demand of the retired bank employees,” adds E. Radhakrishnan, a retired State bank of India officer. .
