The General Secretary of the All India Union Bank Employees’ Association, N. Shankar, has written a letter to the Managing Director and CEO of the bank to address the issue of staff shortages in branches. The letter is very important because it highlights the negative consequences of having too few staff members. According to the letter, the shortage of staff has led to an increase in fraud cases in the branches.

The recent frauds that occurred in the Singhia Ghat branch in Bihar and the Balwani Branch in the Ahmed Nagar Region are clear examples of how the bank has suffered due to its policy of not providing enough permanent staff members to handle the growing workload. However, the media has wrongly portrayed these frauds as the work of daily wage workers who were hired for sub-staff duties and housekeeping. The bank is mistakenly blaming these poor employees for the frauds, when in reality, the increasing workload and the lack of permanent clerical staff forced the bank to hire local workers to manage operations in these branches. These arrangements led to the breakdown of checks and balances, as well as the systems and procedures that allowed the frauds to occur.

Over time, the bank has chosen to increase its operating costs by hiring more officers to work as clerks in the branches, instead of hiring actual clerks. Currently, the bank has nearly 5 officers per branch compared to only 2.60 clerks per branch. These figures demonstrate how the bank has lost its cost-effectiveness and the letter demands that the bank take steps to correct these imbalances.