DMK urges Centre to resolve problems faced by Lakshmi Vilas Bank staff post merger

CHENNAI: The DMK on Friday urged Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar to resolve the problems faced by employees of the Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) which was merged with DBS Bank of Singapore (DBS) six months ago.

DMK parliamentary party deputy leader RS Bharathi, in his letter to both Union Ministers, gave a detailed account on what is happening after the amalgamation of LVB with DBS. “It has been six months since the amalgamation yet the customers use only the cheque books with LVB logo, and the new management yet to take any meaningful steps to revive the activities in the bank. Due to its indecisiveness a considerable amount of staff left the bank fearing their future,” he pointed out.

While announcing the amalgamation plan, Union Minister Javadekar promised that the service conditions of all the employees would be protected. Bharathi also pointed out that the DBS management had not implemented the 11th bipartite wage revision to the applicable employees of LVB recruited under the IBA pay scale in India.

“The approach of the DBS management appears to be that they are not interested in taking care of Indian employees’ service conditions and effect the wage revision as approved by the finance ministry of the Indian government for the bank employees,” he added.

The wage revision including pension for a section of officers and employees is due from November 2017. Nearly 1500 officers and staff are affected directly by Covid, seriously impacting them financially, morally and fiscally. He said a word from both Union Ministers to the DBS management might put an end to the woes of nearly 5,000 employees and their family members.

Though all the banks implemented wage revision, the cash rich foreign banks did not implement the legitimate revised wages/ pension as applicable to employees of the banking industry, Bharathi further said.