“The Corporation Bank, which is all set to celebrate its 40th year Foundation Day soon in Chennai and targeting `3 lakh crore business by the end of March, 2013, is facing acute shortage of manpower across the country.
The bank is running more than 35 branches with one official and the bank needs additional 4,000 staff to handle the current business,” said Corporation Bank Officers Organisation all India general secretary Koushik Ghosh.
He was speaking at a regional conference of Corporation Bank Officers Organisation held in the city on Sunday.
He said that the bank is passing through a testing time as the half year financial results ended on September were not encouraging.
“The bank was doing good business earlier and there is a level of competency, commitment and efficiency among its employees.
When it comes to the utilisation of manpower, it was misused and mishandled,” he said.
He said that they don’t need any monetary benefit to cross the target of Rs 2.88 lakh crore business by the end of March, 2013.
“If the management appoints an additional 2,000 officers, we will prove ourselves by crossing Rs 3 lakh crore business,” he said.
He said that Corporation Bank has plans to open 200 branches every year by recruiting additional 1,000 staff every year. This apart, retaining staff is also a major challenge.
Out of 355 appointments, only 110 were joined after 3 weeks of training, he said. He said that merger of banks would not take place in the next year. The policies and guidelines of the Finance Ministry were also a reason for the increase in the shortage of manpower. Hence, the management was not alone responsible for the situation, he said.
H R Vijaya Kumar, deputy zonal head of Corporation Bank said that the recovery and overall performance of this zone in the last quarter, were not good.
Pointing out the shortage of manpower, he said that more than 121 clerks, out of total 300, did not report to the duty as they got offer from other banks.
Forum general secretary S Ramachandrappa expressed concern over the lack of initiatives to handle the business with a limited manpower.
All India secretary of Benevolent Fund B L Venkatesh said that the bank is facing serious challenges as most of the senior officers are retiring from the services.
“If the management wants to retain its business, either it should retain the staff or recruit new people,” he urged.
Retired bank officials were felicitated on the occasion.