RBI officers raise concern over unified cadre; say response to SSRC ‘less than lukewarm’

The Reserve Bank of India Officers’ Association (RBIOA) has raised concerns over setting up of a unified supervisory and regulatory cadre, saying it could have an impact on the central bank in the long run. The RBI came up with the idea of having a unified supervisory and regulatory cadre and gave an initial deadline of up to January 31, 2020 to officers across grades to opt-in/out of the Specialized Supervisory and Regulatory Cadre (SSRC).

In a letter written to RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday, the RBIOA said the response across grades to the proposed cadre was less than lukewarm. Supervision and regulation were once most sought after and preferred work areas for the officer community, it said.

“The scheme did not find takers because it was prepared without detailed study, lacked clarity, vision and experience in administration,” the RBIOA said in the letter.

The union said separate seniority in the form of SSRC will adversely impact the RBI in the long run. The central bank will lose the benefit of drawing upon from the wider pool of talented officials for its supervisory/regulatory functions, it said.

“At the same time, the officers in the cadre would lack the exposure in other areas, therefore, there is an urgent need to review the decision related to SSRC,” the letter said.

The RBI has consistently ignored the officer community in recent years and they have hardly engaged the RBIOA in any discussions to find the right solution for the problem at hand, the letter said. Till 1974, there was a separate cadre for regulation/ supervision; effective May 22, 1974, the seniority of officers in all grades was merged pursuant to the recommendations of the Cadre Review Committee, the union said.

“At this juncture, what is required is mapping of skills by taking into consideration the educational background, experience, interest and the choice of posting and provision of sufficient workforce in the department concerned,” the RBIOA said in the letter.

The officers’ union said there is an urgent need to revisit the performance appraisal methodology at the RBI. The central bank has been following bell curve based performance management system (PMS), a concept which requires normal distribution of performance of officers, the letter said. Bell curve/normal distribution follows an arithmetic average to arrive at equal distribution and resultantly ‘above’ and ‘below’ average performers are arrived at in the curve, which can be statistically called as standard deviation, it said.

This has led to forced banding of officers since certain percentage of officers have to be invariably considered as high performers or under performers, the letter said. “Current arrangement has given rise to negative work culture due to insecurity and animosity among colleagues which again proves to be counterproductive for the organisation,” the association said. It also requested the governor to revisit promotion policy and consider assured promotion scheme at all grades up to grade ‘E’ in line with promotion policy in civil services.