Public sector banks (PSBs) can soon look forward to some improvements in their recruitment practises to bring them on a level-playing field with their private sector peers, according to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.
“We have appointed a high-powered panel headed by Justice A P Shah, the former chairperson of the Law Commission, to look at this grievance of the public sector banks, and to find the alternative options for them, over and above the existing procedures, which will now give them the flexibility in the matter of these recruitments, so that a level-playing field as closely as possible between them and the private sector banks could be created,” Jaitley said at a function organised by the Indian Banks Association (IBA).
Efforts are now on to give final shape to the banking bureau where all personnel decisions with regards to the bank can also be professionalised, Jaitley added.
According to Jaitley, the government is also working on fast-tracking disputes by computerising the entire Debt Recovery Tribunal (DRT).
“As suggested to the Deparment of Financial Services, since the administration of the DRT, is not under a judicial authority but the department looks after it, on a high priority basis, to consider the computerisation of the entire procedure of the DRT itself,” Jaitley said.
DRT is one forum where both itself and the appellate authority can be exclusively only IT courts of India. The filing of pleadings, the filing of documents and the filing of replies would probably be done on the net itself with only a provision for two other hearings in a defined period of time — one for an interim order and another for a final order. All other hearings in the DRT itself would be eliminated. The DFS has been told to seriously look at these areas itself, Jaitley added.
He said that the government was also open to bringing down a stake in PSBs to 52 per cent.
