Public sector bankers' demand for a five-day work week is genuine and the government should consider it as soon as possible, said Sushil Kumar Modi, member of the parliamentary committee on finance, in an exclusive interview with Moneycontrol on August 31.
"I think bankers' demand is very genuine. In many state and central services, employees have a five-day week," said Modi.
"You can increase the working hours by half an hour per day from Monday to Friday. The government should consider it as soon as possible," he suggested.
Five-day work week is a long-pending demand of Indian bank employees, who started working on alternate Saturdays around eight years ago. Bank unions have been demanding since 2015 that they be given time off on all Saturdays and Sundays.
Under the 10th Bipartite Settlement signed in 2015, RBI and the government agreed with the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) and declared second and fourth Saturdays as holidays.
The five-day work week issue was taken up during the 11th Bipartite Settlement talks but could not be resolved. IBA and bank unions negotiate salaries once every five years under the bipartite agreement.
‘PSBs should accelerate pace of work’
Modi further said that public sector banks (PSBs) have earned a huge profit in Q1FY23-24. Non-performing assets (NPAs) have come down. Despite that, PSBs need some acceleration in their working pace.
"PSBs are boosting several government schemes, the agriculture sector, MSMEs, and Jan Dhan accounts," Modi added.
Despite all these, PSBs should accelerate their pace of work, Modi said. "I'm hopeful that our PSBs have full fighting capacity to compete strongly with private sector banks," Modi said.
Cryptocurrency regulations
Modi said cryptocurrency regulation is an issue that cannot be resolved by a single country.
"For this, there is a need for global consensus. I think the upcoming G20 meeting is a good opportunity for the top 20 global leaders to discuss this crucial issue," he said.
"You see, in the last few months, many cryptocurrency exchanges have either closed down or they have shifted their operations abroad," Modi added.
Modi also lauded the progress of Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY) over the years. "PMJDY's biggest advantage was DBT (direct benefit transfer). The government has saved more than Rs 3 lakh crore," he said. "Most importantly, we can stop leakages in government-sponsored schemes," he added.
“Unfortunately, private sector participation is very low. They're more interested in big corporate loan accounts. I believe that the private sector banks should go more aggressive on Jan Dhan," Modi added.
PMJDY was launched on August 28, 2014, to provide universal banking services through the opening of zero-balance bank accounts for every unbanked household, based on the guiding principles of banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured and funding the unfunded.
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