Raising target from 11,000 to 25,000 will take care of retirements and positions at new branches.
The State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, plans to scale up intake of clerical staff to 25,000 from initial estimate of 11,000 to take care of largesscale retirements and positions at new branches.
At present recruitment process is underway and bank is seeking legal opinion on increasing intake (from 11,000 to 25,000 ) in this recruitment phase itself, a senior SBI official said.
This increase will help save time and cost in the sense that bank would not be required to start fresh recruitment process next year. The estimated cost for the clerical recruitment in 2010 is pegged at Rs 50 crore, official said.
While written examination is though (which saw 27 lakh people appearing for tests), the interviews would be held over the next 2-3 months. The induction is expected to be two stage process ending before March 2011.
Bank has already recruited about 33,000 persons in clerical cadre since 2007. With 25,000 extra hands, the total intake would cross 50,000 by end of March 2011.
It has also taken 6,000 clerical hands on board at its associate banks. “Our assessment of manpower needs factors in the needs of banking entities within group. With consolidation underway, bank would group approach is becoming more relevant,” said another official.
SBI plans to nearly treble its branch network to 50,000 by the end of the current decade from 17,075.
At present, SBI has 12,207 domestic and 141 overseas branches while the remaining belong to its six associate banks.
The bank has 250 million accounts. It plans to merge the associate banks with itself over the next few years.
This year alone, SBI has opened 975 branches and it intends to add another 1,000 branches during 2010-11. At the start of the first decade, SBI had around 9,100 branches.
The Indian bank’s branch expansion plan is a reversal of its strategy at the start of the decade, when like most banks, SBI too was focusing on its existing network and generating more business from them.
