The silent demonstrations by Andhra Bank employees in front of defaulters’ offices in the State have drawn public attention as also of its competitors.
While banks such as Vijaya Bank maintained that they had been adopting similar strategies for the last two to three years, others said they preferred ‘surface action’ to demonstrations, like serving notices and auctioning mortgaged properties.
Vijaya Bank Deputy General Manager A. Murali Krishna said the bank had been organising ‘road shows’ for the last four years.
The staff have been staging demonstrations in front of residences/offices of borrowers who did not clear dues. The strategy is yielding positive results, he added.
Syndicate Bank Field General Manager M. Mohan Reddy said the bank had initiated measures like One Time Settlement (OTS) to clean up the balance sheet. It now plans to organise adalats on February 10However, the State Bank of Hyderabad and Indian Bank said they were for surface action. “We serve notices and auction properties within 10 days of an account turning NPA,” he added.
Meanwhile, theories are afloat on Andhra Bank resorting to ‘Gandhigiri.’
There is a talk that employees were disturbed over reports of merger of the bank with another. So, to retain the identity, they are focusing on recoveries.
Andhra Bank DGM G.S.V. Krishna Rao, however, disputeed such theories and said there was a directive from the management bring down gross NPAs from the existing 5.99 per cent to 4 per cent by the end of the financial year. The The unions and employees have been asked to work in that direction.
“A few ways were suggested to recover NPAs, and silent demonstration was one among them,” he added.
