SBI asks over 70,000 employees to return money paid for 'extra hours' post-demonetisation announcement

The State Bank of India has asked over 70,000 of its employees to return money that was paid to them as compensation for extra work during the time of demonetisation. The ’extra money’ was promised to the staff in lieu of ’extra hours’ following the demonetisation announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 8 November 2016. The 70,000 officers and employees of banks merged with the SBI on 1 April 2017 like State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Hyderabad, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore and State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur were paid ‘compensation’ but now the bank wants back the money it paid its staff, according to a report in India Today. [caption id=“attachment_4198849” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Queues formed outside banks during demonetisation. File photo. PTI[/caption] SBI has said the associate banks had not merged with SBI during demonetisation and hence the responsibility of paying compensation to the staff lies with the five banks and not the SBI. The SBI seems to have done a rethink after paying compensation to its staff. In a communication to its staff, SBI has said: Not only “its own employees” and not those, who were employees of the E-Ab or erstwhile associate banks were supposed to get the money for extra work during note ban window from it. Accordingly, the bank has issued instructions to various zones to recover the money paid to officers of its erstwhile associate banks, the report said. Officers were compensated as high as Rs 30,000 while other staff were compensated around Rs 17,000. It was paid from what is called the “out of pocket expense between March and May this year”. According to the report, the communication states, “The claim related to the period prior to the merger of e-Abs (erstwhile associate banks) should have been dealt by e-Abs at the material time and we have no record of any commitment to pay the same.”