Thousands transferred at SBI, many branches closed, yet no protest

India's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), has rationalised 716 offices (594 branches and 122 administrative offices) and several thousands of employees have been transferred beginning this fiscal, but, strangely, there have been no major protests, top officials said.

Several hundreds of offices would be closed and thousands of staff would be moved in the coming months, officials added.

Strangely one does not hear any major complaints of vindictiveness or arbitrariness from the normally vociferous banking sector employees. This, at a time when leading software companies are arbitrarily firing people at day's notice.

Even the unions that strongly opposed the merger of six banks with SBI and were apprehensive about treatment of incoming staff by the SBI management agree that there is not much of vindictive or arbitrary movement of people till now, making one wonder as to how and why this happened.

Around 70,000 employees (around 40,000 Class III and IV and around 30,000 officers) were added to SBI's rolls following the merger of SBBJ (State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur), SBM (State Bank of Mysore), SBT (State Bank of Travancore), SBP (State Bank of Patiala) and SBH (State Bank of Hyderabad) and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.