Out-of-box thinking at the managerial and operational levels is essential to make rural banking an interesting proposition, feel bankers.

Setting up of ‘all-women’ branches in rural areas with a large concentration of self-help groups can be one such, says C. H. Venkatachalam, General-Secretary, All-India Bank Employees’ Association.

With stint in a rural branch compulsory for officers, Venkatachalam says that they need to be motivated by, say, providing benefits such as transport allowance and giving weightage to rural service for promotions. Such steps, he says, should get more young staff to work in a rural branches.

Lack of social life and language barriers, as most of them are sent to villages far away from their homes, can make rural postings seem like a ‘punishment’.

A banker in Mangalore says there was no recruitment in regional rural banks from 1989 to 2006. This, he says, has created a ‘generation gap’ in the banking sector.

Before 1989, the staff appointments were done at the local level. This had helped create adequate manpower at the local level. That is not the case now, he says, adding that there should be local focus in appointments.

“Though the younger generation are tech savvy, they need to be more service oriented. We sacrificed our interests for the organisation. They need to give more thought on this,” he said.

> vinayak.aj@thehindu.co.in

> revathy.lakshminarasimhan@thehindu.co.in

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