With an eye on upcoming elections in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, the Centre decided to fill up backlog vacancies for the Scheduled Castes in various public sector units. Dalits have a sizeable presence in these poll-bound states.
A special drive will be conducted to fill such vacancies in the public sector banks (PSBs) from October 2.
“The banks will conduct the drive from October 2 to December 31 for filling up the backlog vacancies. Also, the banks have been directed to clear and complete the pending grievances of SCs during this drive, till October 31,” National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) chairman Vijay Sampla said.
He said bank branches will complete the targets assigned to them, especially their obligations towards the members of SC communities, as per the Stand Up India programme. Similarly, banks should achieve the set targets for Scheduled Caste beneficiaries under other central schemes like NRLM, NULM, Mudra, Swabhiman Awas Yojana.
Recently, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman reviewed the performance of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) on credit and other welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes.
The NCSC chairman and finance minister reviewed various measures taken by PSBs in giving credit to persons belonging to the Scheduled Caste communities and their welfare in terms of reservation, backlog vacancies, functioning of welfare and grievances redressal mechanism and other issues.
“The banks will send a report on reservation policy, with regard to recruitment and coverage of SC beneficiaries in all the schemes, and submit the progress of all the schemes to the NCSC, twice every year. Also, banks have been asked to make physical presentations before the NCSC during the period of April 14-April 30 every year; and send a report in the second fortnight of October of each year,” Sampla added.
The banks were also directed to give minimum wages to all the outsourced employees and submit the report.
Sampla said it had come to their notice that in a lot of cases, SC-VCF (Scheduled Caste-Venture Capital Fund) have become NPA. “Banks were directed to examine the backward forward linkages at the time of sanctioning of loans. Banks may take services of advisors and consultants to help the SC entrepreneurs for project appraisal before sanctioning of loan and to ensure the proper implementation of projects.”