On 2 February, Siyaram Prasad, who was posted as Chief Manager with Union Bank at its Junagadh branch, committed suicide by hanging himself from the first floor of the same building where the branch is located.
Prasad, who was originally from Uttar Pradesh, was transferred to Junagadh in May 2021, was under tremendous pressure from his seniors to achieve the loan disbursal target that was given to him. His suicide note that was shared with The Sunday Guardian, has revealed how he was working against all odds and trying to meet impossible targets.
His last letter ended with the request to the bank Managing Director to release his pension to his wife and give her a job so that his children did not suffer on account of his death.
The post of Chief Manager is a relatively senior post and it generally takes 15-18 years of experience and at least eight-ten different transfers to reach the position in a Public Sector Undertaking bank. By the time a banker reaches that position, he is well versed with the pull and push that comes with the job and the fact that Prasad ended his life on account of the work pressure that he was facing reveals the extent of stress he must have undergone before tying the noose around his neck and jumping off. His friends told The Sunday Guardian that he had stopped talking to his wife, children and parents since the last few days and was communicating with them through his friends, ostensibly to break the emotional cord he had with his family members indicating that he had decided to end his life much before he did.
Prasad’s is not a lone case. Instances of bankers ending their lives due to work pressures tied to unrealistic targets and hostile bosses abound.
In April last year, Sandesh Malpani, who was a manager with State Bank of India, Hindu Colony branch, Mumbai, jumped off his ninth floor flat and ended his life as some procedural lapses had occurred on his part, while transferring a loan of about Rs 8.5 crore from ICICI to SBI, which he had to do to achieve the loan disbursal target that was given to him. In the suicide note he had revealed how other bank employees had not done their duty while processing the loan, but with things going haywire, he was being held responsible.
In January last year, 38-year-old Kuldeep Dasgupta, branch manager of State Bank of India at Kabuganj in Cachar district, Assam, hanged himself in the branch. The FIR filed in the case had blamed an audit officer who was auditing the branch and was harassing Dasgupta for gifts.
Ashwani Kumar Rana, who served in Canara Bank for 37 years and was actively involved in the bank union for over three decades, now leads an organization focused on highlighting the challenges faced by members of the banking community. According to him, the issue of suicide among bankers due to work-related issues has reached alarming levels.
“I am telling you with full responsibility that the number of such suicides across India is more than 500 deaths in the last one decade. The primary reason that we have come across is the pressure that is put on the bankers to achieve ‘targets’ by the senior level officer, which starts from the Assistant General Manager level. The further promotion of these senior officers depends on how much target the people reporting to them were able to achieve. And to ensure this, the AGM and above level officers forget all humane behaviour. Seeing no option as he or she cannot resign due to financial concerns, nor he/she can achieve the target or accept further humiliation, the banker ends his life. The banker now has to fulfil the target set by his own boss and also fulfil the targets that the bank gives in respect of opening new accounts, as per government requirements,” he said.
Rana further added there are instances where the top levels of banks have asked their junior staff to use data from electoral rolls to open bank accounts needed to transfer assistance provided by government schemes. “These accounts are then closed once their compliance is submitted to the government. A banker is right now dealing with the impossible task to achieve multiple targets, one that is given to him by the AGM and above level officer and the other that is being given to him by the government,” he said.
On 2 February, Rana in a letter to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, has requested her to give her attention and intervention on the issue of bank employees committing suicide in such alarming numbers, most of which has been ascribed to professional reasons.
The need to meet targets has also generated a mafia of middlemen who are now operating in every city. These middlemen, in lieu of certain commission, bring customers to banks who are looking for home loan, personal loan or car loan. This way, the manager of the concerned branch is able to meet the target of loan disbursal that he has to give in a quarter.
“The concept of middlemen is illegal and is hurting the system in the long run, everyone knows it but still the bank employees have to use them as they simply do not have enough time to meet clients and solicit loans to meet the target that they have been given by their bosses. These middlemen, who have no sense of obligation or loyalty, also bring such customers to banks whose creditworthiness is not sound but still the manager has to give him the loan so to keep the middlemen in good humour,” a bank manager with one of India’s largest PSU banks told The Sunday Guardian.
There are several internal investigations that are going on in these PSU banks against relatively junior level employees because loans were given either to customers who did not match the loan repaying capabilities or loan was given without keeping adequate collateral. “All these incidents occur because the branch manager is under pressure to ensure that the target of that is in the range of multiple crores, and has to be met in the given time,” a Chief Manager level officer with a PSU bank told The Sunday Guardian.
In order to meet these targets, the threat of transfer to areas that are far from where the family is residing or public humiliation is being commonly resorted to by the top level of the banks. Many such videos of managers and their junior colleagues being humiliated over Zoom calls and one-to-one meetings is available online, some of which was also made available to The Sunday Guardian. Multiple X handles like WeBankersOfficial, @Bankers_We have now started putting out instances of harassment by senior officers in the public domain to stop such incidents from happening.
The Sunday Guardian was approached by a few bankers of a PSU bank, all of whom are in their 30s, who narrated to the newspaper about how they had to go to psychological counselling after being repeatedly humiliated by their bosses. One of them said that if it was not for her young school-going children, he would have ended his life.
“There is no internal system to flag this harassment by senior level officers. They know that they cannot be touched as ultimately they are under the protection of the Managing Director and Chief MD level officers. You have no option but just to bear everything and pray that things improve somehow,” a female bank officer posted in a capital city with a PSU bank said.
The public banking sector has witnessed a massive churn in the last few years, a phase that is going to continue in the coming years as the government plans to continue to work on streamlining their functioning. The plans include merging a couple of public banks. In the beginning of 2022, there were 12 PSU banks.
In recent years, Syndicate Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, United Bank of India, Allahabad Bank, Andhra Bank, Corporation Bank, Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Mysore and Bharatiya Mahila Bank were merged into different PSU banks
According to government data, at the starting of 2022, 95% staff were in position against the total sanctioned staff strength of 805,986 sanctioned posts in PSU banks, leaving 41,177 posts vacant. As per data, from the financial year 2019 to 2023, 78,367 staff were recruited in clerical and subordinate cadres to work across 84,134 branches of PSU banks.