SBI asks for DeMo overtime refund from over 70000 employees
Over 70,000 employees of Associate Banks merged with State Bank of India were sent a unpleasant notice by SBI. These employees worked excessively during the noteban and they were promised that they would be paid for overtime. An additional payment was made to the employees, officers for overtime, but now the State Bank of India management has asked the all employees who have been associated with associate banks to return the money.
It is worth noting that during the ban long lines were used to deposit old notes and get new notes from the banks. Banks also received a limited amount of cash, in which the bank personnel had to wait long after office hours to meet the demands of the people. The management of banks for the work of these extra hours promised to the employees that they would be given an allowance for overtime.
Former SBI associate banks include State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur employees. These Associate Banks of SBI were merged with SBI on April 1, 2017.
Actually these 70,000 employees were paid for overtime duty during the merger, but now they are being asked to return it back.
What is SBI’s logic
SBI has said in a letter to all its zonal headquarters that only ‘its employees’ should be given the money for additional work, not the employees of former Associate Banks. SBI has written a letter to all its zonal headquarters and asked to withdraw the money given to the employees of Associate Bank for overtime.
The letter says that this payment was for those employees who used to work in SBI branches. Since then the merger of Associate banks did not happen in SBI at the time of demonitization, hence their employees would not be technically considered as SBI employees. Therefore, the responsibility of compensating them for additional work was not of SBI but of the five banks which were then autonomous.
How much was paid
Between 14 and 30 December 2016, when there was a panic in the country due to the ban on old 500 and 1000 rupee notes, many bank employees had to work extra from 3 to 8 hours every day. Officers were paid up to Rs 30,000 and other employees up to Rs 17,000 for this overtime.
