Letter to the Bank on New Promotion Policy

The Chairman,                                                                15 Oct 2014                        NABARD,                                                              

Head Office

MUMBAI

Dear Sir,

                   Policy for Recruitment, Succession Planning and Career Progression for officers - Concerns

At the outset, we are thankful to the management for seeking a wider consultation on the captioned policy from the staff members. NBOA is the only recognised Association representing the entire officers' community, therefore, it would have been appropriate to have a formal consultation and feedback from NBOA.  However, NBOA had taken considered views from the members through respective units and same is presented here under

    1. You have agreed in the past while discussing with NBOA that the  promotion policy  should be for a long term prospective and should not be changed very frequently, we presume that the" Final" policy will be on a long term policy say for a minimum period of 5 years and will not be subject to frequent changes thereafter.

    2. It is our view that the policy has been framed keeping in view the present perceptive, and it doesn't envisage any future expansion of the organization and resultant in any career progression of the officers. The policy is silent on creation of new avenues for career progress or expansion in the organization.

    3.Though we agree that each organization has its own promotion policy based on its organizational needs, keeping in view that the hierarchical structure of NABARD stands inherited from its Parent organization i.e., RBI. We request you that the present policy should have system and process akin to that of RBI and need not be diluted.

Our suggestions on the policy are as follows:

    A. OVERALL VIEW IS THAT WE MAY ADOPT N FOLLOW RBI POLICY.

    B. OUR VIEWS ON SOME OF THE MAJOR CONSTITUENTS OF THE PRESENT POLICY ARE AS FOLLOWS-

    I. TRIGGER POINT: THOUGH THE INTENT OF THE BANK IS NOBEL, THE SCHEME IS REDUNDENT IN NATURE AS NO OFFICER STAND TO BE BENIFFITTED UNDER THE SCHEME IN NEXT 3 TO 5 YEARS, WHAT USE OF A POLICY WHICH CANNOT BE PUT TO IMMEDIATE USE OR USE IN NEAR FUTURE. TRIGGER POINT POLICY COULD HAVE BEEN USEFUL IF IT COULD BE MADE APPLICABLE TO ALL OFFICERS WHO WOULD HAVE COMPLETED STIPULATED TENURE IRRESPECTIVE OF THEY BEING FRESHERS OR REPEATERS. FURTHER THE STIPULATED PERIOD OF 9 YEARS FOR TRIGGER POINT SCHEME COULD BE REDUCED TO 8 YEARS OR CONVERSELY PP MAY BE INTRODUCED.

    2. CALLING RATIO AT 1:1.75 IS TOO HIGH AND IT WILL RESULT IN LARGE SCALE REJECTIONS AND SUPER CESSIONS LEADING TO FRUSTRATION AMONG THE HUMSN RESOURCE. EARLIER SYSTEM OF CALLING FRESHERS @ 1:1.5 WITH TOTAL RATIO - OF VACANCY VIS A VIS FRESHERS + REPEATERS NOT EXCEEDING 1:3 MAY BE ADOPTED.

    3. WEIGHTAGE OF PAR AND INTERVIEWS MAY BE MAINTAINED AT 50:50 IN ALL GRADES AS INTERVIEWS ARE SUBJECTIVE IN NATURE AND MAY LEAD TO DISTORTIONS AND DISCRIMINATION.

    4 FOR ALL THE ALTERNATE GRADES THE PROMOTION BE BASED ON ONLY PARS, MEANS IF THE INTERVIEWS ARE THERE FOR GRADS A to B THEN B to C SHOULD BE ON PAR,LIKE WISE C to D BASED ON WRITTRN TEST/ INTERVIEW THEN D to E SHOULD BE BASED ON ONLY PAR.

    5 AS A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE NBOA WILL ALWAYS DEMAND FOR RECRUITMENT AT ENTRY LEVEL GRADE A and NOT AGREE FOR ANY RECRUITMENT AT LATERAL LEVELS  

    6 CONDITIONS GOVERNING REOPTING OUT OF SNTS MAY BE FORMULATED AND CIRCULATED.

    7.WHEN THE BANK IS CONTEMPLATING DECENDING ORDER OF MERIT WHILE SELECTING OFFICERS BASED ON THE RATIO OF 50;50 OF PAR and INTERVIEW, THERE IS NO NEED FOR ASSIGNING QUALIFYING MARKS IN INTERVIEW,

We once again request you to provide us an opportunity to present our views in person.

Dr, D.S. Chauhan

General Secretary

NBOA