COVID duty for Public Sector Employees – This is so called, the hypocrisy. It is the same government who has treated the banking as an essential services and asked bankers to open the banks in the odd hours of pandemic and now issuing order for COVID duties.
In the state of Karnataka, many of the bankers had received the orders through SMS and Whatsapp for COVID training by BBMP. Interestingly without informing the management of the bank. The issuing of order is really questionable as the BBMP is not having any authority to assign duties to Public Sector Employees.
Till date no official responses from the Bankers Union yet.
BBMP had randomly collected data from the Election Commission and started sending notices. They have sent notices to bankers who were on duty during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls to join booth-level committees being formed to conduct contract tracing and monitor COVID-19 patients.
Bankers are particularly vulnerable to effects of the coronavirus infection as they are working in the branches and already been in contact with large number of people.
Bankers are roped into booth-level task force committees without taking the permission of SLBC. Notices to report for training and duty have been sent to even employees who retired in 2019, pregnant women and those with comorbidities.
Even staff members with physical disability have been asked to fall in line. I don’t understand, how can the government be so indifferent towards its own employees ?
Some department heads said BBMP, which is creating booth-level committees, should have consulted them and then prepared a list of staffers. Instead, BBMP has even not verified the age and health status before summoning them for training.
Bankers are advised to take it seriously and protest against it strongly. It’s now or never.
