State Bank of India (SBI) has issued a circular to all its employees saying it will deduct the encashment of a day’s privilege leave and one day’s salary to contribute to the Prime Minister's Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) created to fight the coronavirus outbreak. SBI, India’s largest lender, is aiming to donate Rs 100 crore to PM Cares Fund through this measure.
“At the request of our employees and their representative federations, it has been decided that an amount of encashment of 1-Day’s Privilege Leave and deduction of 1-day’s Salary of every employee (payable in the month of April 2020) of every staff member will be collected by HRMS Department and contributed to the ‘PM CARES Fund',” said the circular issued across all branches. Moneycontrol has reviewed a copy of the circular.
These deductions will be effected immediately, the circular says. If an employee wants to opt out of the scheme, he will have to formally inform superiors. Such employees should ‘inform the opt-out decision to their Controller who will collate the opt-out requests up to April 7, 2020 and forward them to the HRMS (human resources management service) Department on April 8, 2020, according to the circular.
In the case of corporate centre and CC establishments, LHOs and other administrative offices, the respective AGMs will collect such opt-out applications and forward them to HRMS Department on April 8, the circular said.
PM CARES Fund is a corpus formed by the central government to use for the Covid-19 relief operations. Several corporate and HNIs have contributed to the fund.
While SBI is directly deducting employee’s PL encashment and one-day's salary, other sate-run banks are giving an option for the employees to contribute to the fund and seeking their consent before deducting money. For instance, Oriental Bank of Commerce has asked employees to donate one day’s PL encashment to the PM CARES Fund if they are willing to do so.
“It has accordingly been decided that an amount equivalent to the encashment of one day PL of employees, who consent for the same shall be remitted to PM CARES Fund. All the staff members willing to donate one day PL are requested to submit their consent for PL encashment in HRMS,” says the OBC Circular.
Similarly, Indian Bank has asked its employees and that of Allahabad Bank employees (which is merged with Indian Bank) to contribute one day's salary to PM Cares Fund. But here also, this is an appeal from the management to employees seeking their consent.
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