The government has appointed a high-level panel headed by Justice AP Shah, former chairman of the Law Commission, to ensure that public sector banks have a level playing field vis-à-vis private sector banks when it comes to recruitment of personnel. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the panel will find out alternative options for public sector banks (PSBs) over and above the existing procedures so that a level-playing field as close as possible with the private sector is created and the former gets flexibility in the matter of recruitment of personnel.
“I recollect the SBI Chairperson making a very strong plea at the Gyan Sangam (a conclave of top bankers held in Pune in January) that PSBs were handicapped by the fact that they were treated as the instrumentality of the state.
“And being so treated, they never had the flexibility like their private sector counterparts to go and recruit the best from the campuses.
“And therefore, they had to fall back on relatively obsolete procedures,” said Jaitley.
He observed that this position also stemmed from certain judicial verdicts as a result of which the capacity with regard to recruiting personnel in these banks was restrained.