Navjot Sidhu is a man of many apt words (now less heard though) and he once described Indian team’s predicament on a bad day in the field as ‘ .. lying flat on it’s back and the only way it can look is – upwards !’ With all the battering that the PSU banks are being subjected to, it could well their story but unlike our cricket’s fortunes there’s no ‘VIRAT’ standing up for them.
To make matters worse are certain opinions in the media on the nuances of banking from such sections that has never seen the inside of a modern PSU bank. The image of PSU banks, alarmingly in the last two years has suddenly transformed from ‘people’s friends’ to ‘social parasites’ and Govt’s bogey, with their staggering bad debts, massive doses of capital infusion required and the recent spate of banking-related scams, thus making them synonymous with big frauds, malfeasance and poor corporate governance.
For instance a famous pulp fiction writer had articulated in a leading paper ‘..it really isn’t hard to hatch a plan… can imagine the wild party in progress inside those dusty PSB branches’. As much as it’s lurid sensationalism from the author, for justifiably outraged stakeholders it might appear factual, given the magnitude of frauds coming to the fore.
It is as if overnight the PSU banks (which have been beasts of burden for populist govt. schemes for years on and have always paid the price for it) have become ‘bad boys’ of the financial world and most of them barring the gargantuan SBI, need to bunched or merged together to stem the rot ! The alternative to safe and sound banking being projected are the ‘blue eyed’ private sector banks looking lean (less NPAs) and good (making profits). This impression was working well till the largest private bank and it’s redoubtable Chief were rocked by conflict of interest allegations that have set in motion many actions and have raised concerns of corporate governance in private banks.
In its efforts to portray a strong intent to come down heavily on wrong doers in terms of suspected cases of large bank loan frauds detected in PSU banks, the prime investigative agencies have started summarily arresting and taking into custody, the Heads and Top Management teams (previous and existing in cases) and widely publicizing these actions in the media, even without really establishing their direct involvement, connivance and any malafide intentions, provoking strong protests from the IBA and PSU bank unions.
For people who spent better part of their existence having served with diligent integrity and more importantly, the large community of literally a million employees committed to their long working hours in some 21 PSU banks, what is the morale like and who’s addressing it ? Apart from a early rebuttal from the MD of SBI group on the ‘private good vs public bad’ issue of banks and a few stray voices from the wilderness of retired groups of officers, there seems to be not much coming out from the promoter/owners and the management to dispel the gloom spread all around and meet the challenge fairly and squarely highlighting stringent action where necessary.
Major battles have been fought by PSU banks from many fronts in it’s long history. It’s well-known internal weaknesses of low margins and strengths of reach and spread and myriad external factors must be addressed by the Govt. and regulators.The bigger war against NPA and credit related frauds has to be fought by a determined and dedicated army led with ‘Churchill’ like tenacity by its owners and leaders and regulators much as depicted in the Oscar winning film ‘The Darkest Hour’ !
( pic source : danscartoons.com )
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