• PAGE ONE
• INDEX
• HOME

Delayering is the buzzword in PSBs

Rajalakshmi Menon

MUMBAI, Jan. 22

ALONG with the VRS, nationalised banks have started delayering the command structure for faster decision-making.

Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Allahabad Bank and a host of other nationalised banks are busy doing away with the concept of a zonal office, with the regional offices directly reporting to the head office.

``Basically, delayering has to be done now as after VRS most banks will get leaner and credit decisions cannot be delayed,'' said a senior banker. Indian Bank, which had 11 zonal offices, decided to do away with that tier a couple of months ago to speed up decision-making.

Banks generally have four tiers -- branch office, regional office, zonal office and headquarters. By eliminating one of the tiers, delays in dealing with critical matters can now be minimised. In this case, the regional officer, who earlier had the cushi on of the zonal officer between him and the head office, now finds himself loaded with extra responsibility and has to act faster. In the case of Indian Bank, it is understood that three officers of the rank of GM have been deputed to head different regi onal offices.

``Post-VRS, the entire focus of banks will have to be on internal transformation -- reorganising and restructuring to see that customer service is not affected,'' said Mr A.K. Khandelwal, Executive Director, Bank of Baroda.

Mr Khandelwal said decisions on HRD, which were earlier kept on the back-burner, would now have to be taken by banks. ``The workforce will have to be made more nimble, more focussed and skilled and retail orientation will have to be developed,'' he said.

In Bank of Baroda and Bank of India, around 600 officers can now be deployed effectively in operations, facilitating maximum utilisation of manpower.

Bank of India is planning a two-phased organisational restructuring. The first phase will mean actual delayering while in the second phase regional offices will be combined to cut down the number of offices reporting to the head office. The 63 regional o ffices may now be reduced to about 50 over a period of time.