In this day and age, when the price of everything seems to be going up, except for your salary, employees of cooperative banks in the State have something to cheer about. Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Friday announced a sizeable pay hike for co-op bank staffers, which would be calculated with retrospective effect from January 1, 2011.
The pay hike of 4,784 employees working with the Tamil Nadu State Apex Cooperative Bank (TNSACB) and District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) would range between `1,630 and `15,760 per month. For the TNSACB and DCCBs, it would mean an additional expenditure of `55.82 crore, the Chief Minister said in a statement issued here after chairing a high-level meeting with Cooperative Minister K Raju and senior officials at the Secretariat.
In 2011-12, the TNSACB recorded a gross profit of `41.51 crore. Of the 23 DCCBs, 19 have been continuously reporting profits, while the four others moved out of the red during the current period.
The five-year payment agreement for employees of these banks expired on December 31, 2010 and after the AIADMK government assumed office, Jayalalithaa had directed the Registrar of Cooperative Societies to consider hiking salaries with effect from January 1, 2011.
The Registrar has suggested that the pay hikes be tied to each bank’s performance. Accordingly, while TNSACB employees would get a 21 per cent pay hike with retrospective effect from January 1, 2011, employees of the nine District Central Cooperative Banks at Chennai, Coimbatore, Cuddalore, Dharmapuri, Erode, Kancheepuram, Salem, Tiruchy and Villupuram would get a 20 per cent hike in their pay.
Employees of the nine DCCBs at Kumbakonam, Dindigul, Kanyakumari, Pudukottai, Ramanathapuram, Tiruvannamalai, Virudhunagar, Thoothukudi and Madurai that have been reporting profits with an annual business of `1,700 crore as on March 31, 2012 would get a 15 per cent pay hike with retrospective effect from January 1, 2011.