Immense job hour stress with emotional problems which escalates into full-blown crisis has now become synonymous with the Indian Banking Industry, where subordinates are forced to deliver under stress which results in advanced psychological conditions which linger around them say experts.
Recent suicide by a Punjab National Bank’s officer in the city beautiful has uncovered the dirty underbelly of this industry and brought forth the inhuman treatment meted out to them by their superiors for personal gains, says Rakesh Sood, General Secretary of Bank of India Officer’s Association.
On Thursday Ajay Sehgal, 51, committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. The deceased who was posted as branch head at PNB, Sector-20 Panchkula named his field general manager JK Gupta and circle head AK Gupta for his suicide.
This is not the a lone incident as earlier this year two bank employees committed suicide and in both the cases work place stress led to depression which ultimately resulted in death.
According to a study published in PubMed journal, bank employees experience stress in various ways. Bank employees cannot afford the time to relax and “wind down” when they are faced with work variety, discrimination, favoritism, delegation and conflicting tasks.
Manohar Singh, Vice President All India PNB Officer’s Association said, “Earlier banking industry was seen as a job haven for young and enthusiastic individuals who were ready to perform. However, with the advent of privatisation and cut throat competition the authorities have now started relying on setting up capricious targets to improve their annual profits which is affecting the work force.”
The study states that some employees tend to bring work-related problems home and take family problems to work which depends on their educational background, the strength of the employees’ family support, and the amount of time available to relax. But almost all employees suffer from mild to acute stress.
Dr BS Chavan a leading psychiatrist with the GMSH-32 said, “Work place stress is a leading cause of depression in the developing countries, especially in India. Earlier it was not so prevalent in the public sector organization and quasi-government organization but with time things are changing.”
MR Rana, Vice President All India Union Bank officers Federation said, “Enough is enough, we can’t sit quietly as our comrades commit suicide due to depression which is directly associated with stress. The high authorities should realize that banking is a tough job and a person who is dealing with money should be rational enough to handle it, stress and pressure will only add to commotion.”
In recent time the public sector banks have started aping their private counterpart by believing that divulging loan will bring in more profit. But the functioning of a public sector bank is quite different from the private ones and there are many checks and balances in place to keep losses at bay. Working under the ambit of all this rules makes distribution of loan a cumbersome task, added Rana. However, personal ambitions laced with profit making motifs force some overly ambitious people higher up in the hierarchy of banking officials to set up unreal lending targets which in turn has a negative impact on the working of their subordinates. Sehgal was also the victim of somebody else’s ambition. Dr says that constant stress leads to depression. It is not true that all the depression patients commit suicide but at times an incident or some other factor works as a trigger which might lead the person under stress to commit suicide.
In the case of Sehgal, it was an internal meeting where he was publicly humiliated by his superiors and was termed as an underperformer. The man got depressed to such an extent that in his suicide note he mentioned that his body must be fed to the dogs, which clearly depicts the dog like existence he was holed into by work place stress.