Are Bankers Getting Correct DA Increases ?   

by

Rajesh Goyal   

In terms of the BPS, bankers are paid DA based on  All-India Average Consumer Price Index Numbers for Industrial Workers.  We accept happily whatever is declared by Government.  Frankly, speaking, the complete details of the methodology and whether the data input is correctly fed into the system or all the parameters are correctly calculated is anybody's guess.   Like most of the bankers, such details are greek to me too. 

Like many other bankers, I have also sometimes wondered as to why the increase in DA appeared to be lower than what we see in the market prices.   When we fail to comprehend the same, we take the shelter under the plea that CPI here is that of industrial workers and we are urban class people and thus there is a mismatch etc. etc.  However,  the satisfaction has been the hallmark of such discussions.

Today I have received an email from an authenticated source (soon it may appear as a news item too), wherein it is informed that "INFLATION UNDER-REPORTED - The WPI for Electricity is unchanged since Oct last year"  The email further states :-

"Some of the major states who have implemented the power tariff hike are Delhi, AP, Tamilnadu, Bihar, Haryana, Maharashtra etc. The Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission has raised the power tariff between 25%-27% in July. The Andhra Pradesh government has raised electricity charges earlier effective from April this year in the range of 10%-15%. Tamil Nadu Electricity Regulatory Commission (TNERC) announced a 37 per cent hike in the power tariff, covering both domestic and industry sectors effective from April 2012. The Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC) increased power tariff in the state by about 12.1 per cent with effect from 1-April. Haryana Energy Regulatory Commission (HERC) has hiked power tariff by around 10 to 15 per cent effective from July. Tripura has hiked tariff by 17 per cent. Those having raised power tariff from August are the states of Rajasthan and Maharashtra. The impending incorporation of impact from electricity tariff hikes on the WPI is another upside risk to the headline WPI Inflation going forward.

 After reading the above email, I was wondering whether anybody in banking industry has knowledge and data to verify whether the calculations of CPI released by GoI is correct.   In these days of high inflation, Government is under tremendous pressure to show lower inflation rates, and thus can put pressure for showing the inflation rates to be lower.   Moreover, there can also be suppression of certain facts like above.   Still, there can be some genuine mistakes.    A small suppression of facts can rob the bankers crores of rupees in salary increase which during the service period can be to the tune of even few lakh of rupees per employee.  

I am not aware whether union leaders have thought about this risk area of robbing the employees - it can happen even to central government and state government employees too?  Has ever any mistake been noticed and if that was corrected, whether it was from retrospective effect ?  I feel that there is a need for independent collection / verification of data by a group to be constituted by UFBU to check whether CPI is correctly calculated every month.    I know this may be a difficult task, but when the interests of over 10 lakh employees is involved,  there is no harm in discussing and attempting to put in place a system.   With so many scams coming on regular basis, it is possible that another scam to rob the employees and reduce fiscal deficit / increase profits of banks may be just round the corner.  

Let our readers give their views on this topic so that a strategy is finalised and pressure is built to implement the same at Banking Industry level to save employees from any cheating on this count.