The AIBEA has urged bank managements to ensure stricter implementation of safeguards in branches, prescribed under the standard operating procedures, as many staff have tested positive while two employees died of COVID-19 in Mumbai.

Earlier, a chief manager of State Bank of India lost his life due to the virus. Recently Uday Kamat, special assistant, IDBI Bank, Malad branch, Mumbai also died due to same reason.

“A number of employees from Bank of India, Central Bank of India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of Baroda, etc. are undergoing quarantine,” said C.H.Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA), in a letter to the convener of the state-level bankers committee of Maharashtra.

Maharashtra is the worst affected among the States in the country impacted by the pandemic, and Mumbai, the worst-affected city in the State.

“When employees go to work in branches, while the SOP [standard operating process] prescribes the safety measures and precautions to be ensured, it is totally different in the ground,” Mr. Venkatachalam claimed.

He said bank branches were not properly being sanitised due to absence of regular house-keeping staff and social distancing norms not properly followed in many branches, in the absence of a regular watchman, armed guard or other security staff.

The situation in bank branches will become worse with the second instalment of ₹500 that has been credited to the bank accounts of Prime Minister Jan-Dhan Yojana women beneficiaries under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package.

“We would like to strongly reiterate and insist that all the precautions and safeguards outlined in the SOP are guaranteed for implementation at the branches, failing which the managements should not expect one way traffic only on the side of the employees to somehow manage and work in the branches,” Mr. Venkatachalam added.