PNB fraud: Banks Board Bureau may wind up in March after Vinod Rai's exit
Hard
on the heels of the Nirav
Modi fraud
case, which has shaken public trust in state-owned banks,
the Banks Board
Bureau (BBB), set up by the government as a makeover platform for
these banks, will effectively close down in March.
The
term of BBB Chairman Vinod
Rai (pictured),
who was tasked with advising the government on enforcing “a code of
conduct and ethics for managerial personnel” in these banks, will
expire at the end of March. It is unlikely the government will look
for a successor to Rai, sources familiar with the developments said.
The
BBB has not been able to live up to expectations that it will improve
the quality of human resources in state-owned banks from
the boardroom down to entry-level probationary officers.
Over
the weekend, as Punjab
National Bank (PNB)
moved its general manager (human resources) out of his role, the
almost parallel eclipse of the bureau demonstrates why scams like the
one involving Nirav
Modi occur
repeatedly: Scamsters take advantage of the abysmal management of
human resources in these banks.ALSO
READ: Eyes
wide shut: The $1.8 billion PNB fraud that went completely
unnoticedThe
bureau was set up in February 2016 under Rai, former Comptroller and
Auditor General, to address these deficiencies. It included the
secretary, department of financial services in the finance ministry,
and a deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India, besides senior
bank executives.
However,
it never got going, except in choosing candidates for executive-level
posts in banks.Even
these have been delayed. The BBB chose Rajnish Kumar as Arundhati
Bhattacharya’s successor as chairman of State Bank of India in July
2017 but the decision was announced by the Appointments Committee of
the Cabinet on October 4, 2017, just days before the latter retired.
The
candidate for the post of managing director in the same bank has been
cleared, but the person’s name is yet to be announced.
The finance ministry,
wary of sharing its role in managing officers of public sector banks,
has refused to engage with the bureau. The BBB has also suggested
standard eligibility criteria for non-official directors in
these banks.
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