Wednesday 23 October 2019

The suicide of Anilkumar and its takeaway.

The suicide of Anilkumar, Branch manager of Jog falls branch on 19.10.2019 is the most tragic one. Most tragic because he is just 29years and has a small kid and wife who is young and just started the married life. What a heartbreaking, calamitous, unwarranted and stupid act by this young officer whatever may be the compelling circumstances. Life is most precious and it cannot be traded for anything else in this world.

The reason for Anil kumar to take that extreme step is according to various newspaper reports quoting his devastated wife is ubiquitous unbearable work pressure. His wife screaming under agonizing pain, thumping her chest in devastation and extreme shock was seen shouting that her husband has succumbed to unbearable work pressure in the bank. The severity of the shock she has undergone, the mental trauma she has suffered can be gauged from her refusal to believe that her husband is dead.

This Suicide is not an isolated incident in the bank. We are hearing such news from across the country with alarming frequency.
What is the takeaway for the bank as well as for the staff from this from these kind of incidents? He should not have resorted this extreme step no doubt. What thoughts could have passed through his mind just before the suicide? Probably the overwhelmingness of work and no hope of help or guidance would have driven him to this act. Psychologists say that it is invariably the HOPE that keeps a person going. When one does not see hope and the problem is too overwhelming and insurmountable, and there being no help from any quarter a person resorts to this kind of act. Here point to be noted is, it is a single man branch. 

There are many such hope less persons/staff in the bank. There may be many Anilkumars in the making. It is high time Bank has to sit up and take notice of the problem. 

Single man branch is a bane and a curse in SBI. We serve the multitudes unlike our counterparts in other PSBs or in private banks. We end up in doing mass banking. Added to this is the all pervasive pressure of cross selling which has spread like a cancer. The greed of incentives of cross selling has put enormous pressure on the operatives. This greed has robbed the humane element in all the transactions /interaction of the controllers with the branch level operatives. This greed has made them monstrous and mad. It is time that they realize the harm they are causing to the beleaguered and vulnerable staff.

A SUGGESTION TO RELEASE / FIND SOME TIME FOR THE STAFF:

Close the cash transaction by 2.00pm. When we are moving to alternate channels and digital banking in such a big way, keeping cash counters till 4.30pm is not required. This will release some time for the staff which they can use more gainfully like attending to compliance issues, NPA recovery, scouting new advances etc. I had suggested this long ago in one of my articles in the blog. 

APPEAL TO ALL MY COLLEAGUES :

Life is precious, divine and is created by God. No one has any right to cut short it even if it is his own. Please don't do it. If you come to a conclusion that it is difficult to continue anymore in the bank, please leave the bank not this world. If there is no job in SBI that is not the end of the world. There are umpteen number of avenues available elsewhere. Be bold, be realistic, be sensible. You have no right to put your family in destitution for no fault of theirs.

K N Krishnan. 

Wednesday 31 July 2019

A lot can happen over a cup of coffee.

When VG Siddharth founder of Cafe Coffee Day (CCD), designed this tag line - A LOT CAN HAPPEN OVER A CUP OF COFFEE, perhaps nobody has  envisaged that this (his tragic death) could also happen.

When N T RamaRao died in the year 1996, Deccan Chronicle a daily from Hyderabad wrote an editorial on his death which was not so natural. There, the editor had mentioned a quote from - F Scott Fitzgerald, an American fiction writer. His quote was - Show me an hero, I will write a tragedy for him. This quote of Fitzgerald perhaps applies in case of VG Siddharth's death too.

Siddharth was a quiet, unassuming and self-effacing entrepreneur who shunned limelight and publicity. Many don't know the size of the business empire he has built. Only after his death that the world is aware of the scale and size of his operations.

His main grouse in his death note is against the Income Tax authorities. He says in that that IT authorities have harassed him and the raids on his business has caused him enormous damage to his business prospects from which he could not resuscitate himself and finally gave in to the stress in the form of his suicide. There may be other reasons too which at this stage cannot be deciphered. Only thorough investigation can throw some light on  the entire episode. It is said that the simultaneous raids on his premises across twenty two locations has sent the share prices plummeting to new lows thus causing large scale erosion of his asset value. Ever since he was missing and found dead in Nethravathi river there was a hue and cry over the high handedness of IT authorities and many termed it as Tax terrorism unleashed by the ruling dispensation. Also the IT authorities have clarified that they have proceeded as per law. This difference in perception of the issue between IT and rest of world is always debatable, but the fact remains that it has caused irreparable loss to the business, reputational as well as monetary.

This particular charge against IT brings to the surface another most important damage. The raids spree by IT authorities will be a serious jolt to the spirit of entrepreneurship in general. This negative sentiment will make the prospective entrepreneurs not to stick their neck out, there by people not only lose the existing jobs but also creation of new jobs becomes almost impossible because no Entrepreneur/Industrialist will ever come forward to venture into any new business. A negative business sentiment will pervade all through the capitalists who would otherwise have invested. Modi's favorite slogan of - ease of doing business will remain a mere slogan.

Siddharth, despite whatever may be the challenges, difficulties and obstacles should not have resorted to this kind of act. Because according to his own averment, the value of his assets is much more than the loans owed to the creditors. He could have been tenacious and persistent for some more time for the liquidity crunch to get over. He has failed to face the adversity with aplomb. This is most probably due to the fact that he all along kept these things to himself without discussing / sharing atleast with his friends and well wishers who could have given some guidance or shown the way. Life is too precious to be frittered away in the way he did.

The successful person therefore is not the one who is successful but the one who faces adversities, challenge the challenges and still hold his head high when chips are down and hope is distant. 

That's why there is a pressing need for all of us to discuss our failures essentially with our kids so that they should be mentally prepared to accept failures in their lives someday in future if they come across them. We should not make the mistake of always talking about success stories. Because success and failures are the two sides of our lives.

I pray God to give strength to the family of the bereaved and thousands of his staff to bear the loss. May his soul rest in peace.

Friday 24 May 2019

Has Rahul Gandhi written the - epitaph for the Congress?

The much awaited results of the 2019 Loksabha election are out. The BJP has recorded a resounding victory. It has even bettered its own record of 2014. The enormity of the victory is such that it has dumbfounded even its own conservative analysts /poll pundits.

The moot point to be discussed here is more of opposition's failure rather than Modi's performance. The disparate and splintered opposition parties could not convince the voter of their commitment to come together and carry on the business of governance. This was very crucial simply because Congress's revival was considered a task of a tall order. Also congress failed to see the writing on the wall. It was in a wishful thinking that Modi's non keeping of his poll promises and his misdemeanor of demonetiization, GST etc would sail them through. What it also failed to appreciate is the fact that Modi provided a scandal free regime unlike them. The opposition, the
congress included really failed to match the fire power, the lung power and the muscle power of the BJP. They were clearly a distant second. And in organizational preparedness they were no match to the well oiled BJPs party cadres. One of the plus points that BJP had, was the RSS, its mentor, guide and philosopher. It had always guided, corrected and channelised the enormous resources of BJP - men, material and money to optimum levels. The opposition at no point of time sat up and took notice of how destructive the Modi and Shah combination could be to their survival. They couldn't do because they were in complete disarray and spent time in wishful thinking. Rahul Gandhi though he made some noices here and there, was drowned in the crescendo of the Modi and his ever ready brigade of enthusiast party cadres.

What many including the opposition could not really saw is the subtle undercurrent of a pro hindutva desire that was in hibernating status. The Pulwama and Balakot incidents were the real trigger for this undercurrent to manifest to the mainstream. This is the watershed moment in the entire election campaign which was vicious, vitriolic and without discussing the real issues confronting the common man. Many times it degenerated to personal and derogatory.

This victory has enhanced the responsibility of the government to be more responsible, fair and judicious to all sections of the society.

Perhaps Rahul Gandhi would have now realized that Modi as a rival is too intimidating and overwhelming for him. Probably this is the reason why he has reportedly offered to step down. Congress lost the game long ago when they sent Pranab Mukherjee to the Raisina hills. Instead they would have done well by projecting him as the Prime ministerial candidate. This would have atleast increased its longevity. Hoisting a novice on the grand old party, a party full of seniors and most experienced politicians and not looking outside the Gandhi family for leadership, congress committed a blunder and it is too late to undo the damage.