Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) in Associate Banks of SBI
Job losses due to SBI Merger
State Bank of India (SBI) informed that five Associate Banks of SBI have launched Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) for their employees. The details of applications received for VRS in Associate Banks of SBI is as under:
| Name of Associate of SBI | Officers | Award Staff |
| State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur | 626 | 480 |
| State Bank of Hyderabad | 550 | 430 |
| State Bank of Mysore | 309 | 499 |
| State Bank of Patiala | 495 | 404 |
| State Bank of Travancore | 310 | 261 |
(The last date of withdrawal of applications is 12 April, 2017)
SBI has informed that no employee will be laid off on account of merger.
The above information given by the Minister of State for Finance in Parliament on 11.4.2017.
There was not expressly clear in SBOP VRS-2017 that the employees who were 50 years or more age but less than 20 years of service would not be eligible for pension under VRS, They got retirement under VRS-2017 & after that they denied pension even under amended regulation 28 of SBOP Bank Employees’ Pension Regulations, 1995 by the Bank. As such they are loosing pension and pensionary benefits due to silence maintained by the management of SBOP in VRS-2017. This amounts to fraud on the part of management. Even after issue of VRS-2017, there was no clarification letter/counselling before taking the consent from employees. Thus, they felt cheated themselves by the Bank being their no fault. Now they will request the Honourable High Court to hear their grievances& pass suitable orders to the bank authority to grant them pension.