AIBEA urges Centre to reduce working hours, days of Banks due to rise in COVID cases

Hyderabad, Apr 15 (FN Representative) All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) on Thursday appealed to the Central government to restrict the physical banking for the next four to six months as implemented in last year and banks may be advised to reduce working hours like from 10 AM to 2 PM and permit to function five days a week in view of the rise in COVID-19 cases again. In a letter to Mr Debasish Panda, Secretary, Department of Finance Services, Ministry of Finance, AIBEA General Secretary Ch Venkatachalam said you are also aware that all bank branches and establishments are potential hotspots for spreading the disease. This is a national medical emergency and we urge upon you to ensure minimum required banking facility.

He said by restricting banks to 5 days in a week, to break the chain, would cut the exposure of bankmen and the customers to a great extent without impairing services. Incidentally, several state governments have imposed night curfew and put in place travel restrictions, which requires reduced working hours to enable bankers to reach home early. We call upon you to instruct all the banks to deploy minimum possible staff/officers at branches/offices. Measures like working with 1/3rd of staff strength, Work from Home, should be implemented for next 4-6 months. Staff/Officers to be called on rotation basis so that exposure is reduced, Mr Venkatachalam said. The AIBEA General Secretary said instead of opening all branches at multi-centres, numbers may be restricted in such a manner that banking facilities can be extended at few select branches obviating the necessity to open all and expose bankmen and customers to the risk of infection. He said all segments of society – commercial organizations, state/central/banks/PSUs etc should be instructed to work only during stipulated hours. The commencement/closure times should be deferred (to be different for each segment) so that the footfalls, traffic on road is reduced, congregations are minimized, which can avoid the spread of infection.

This will avoid congestion on roads, saves fuel and will allow carrying on the day-to-day commercial/business activity without requiring lockdowns. The top Union leader said considering the nature of work, coming in contact with hundreds of customers every day, bankmen carry higher risk. Having considered as frontline Covid Warriors by the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC), we call upon you to initiate measures to provide vaccination to all bankmen and added employees with existing co-morbidities, pregnant employees/officials, persons with disabilities (Divyangjan) be exempted from duty. The above suggestions, if implemented would not only be a strong shield of safety to bankmen and customers, but will ensure availability of required banking facilities and help sustained economic activities in the country, he said. The Insurance Policy in Banks to be fine-tuned as quite substantial number of bankmen have succumbed to COVID and over a lakh have contracted infection. There are many instances where the bankmen have not only suffered physically, but they have been harmed financially as entire expenditure charged at hospitals had not been reimbursed. We urge upon you to issue suitable instructions to insurance companies to fine tune their policies to ensure that bankmen are not out of pocket for getting treatment at hospitals.

Mr Venkatchalam appealed to bring COVID related expenditure under exemption clause of Income Tax. Whenever the medical expenditure is reimbursed, beyond threshold, the reimbursement is treated as perk and taxed under IT Act. We request that COVID related treatment should be treated akin to serious ailments like cancer, heart, kidney and tax exemptions be allowed accordingly. On Compensation to family of deseased bankmen, he said as has been implemented by Central Government and few State Governments, compensation of Rs.50 lakh to the next of kin of deceased frontline Covid Warriors should be extended to all banks. This would be a true recognition of a martyr of the financial army who laid down his life in the line of duty to serve the nation during a national crisis. We fervently hope that above suggestions are duly considered and implemented without any further loss of time, he added.