Meerut: As in other poll-bound states, in Uttar Pradesh too, bank officers and staffers have been assigned election duty, at a time when normalcy is yet to return after demonetisation. Overworked bank staff and their exasperated customers are still reeling under the stress due to the cash crunch. Now, with bank employees being put on election duty, it is set to add to woes, especially in rural areas which have fewer bank branches and ATMS. As bank employees leave for their training and election duty, branches will be shut or will work at very limited capacity.“We were hoping that the Election Commission will this time exempt us from electoral duty, considering we have been working non-stop for the last two months. It will be extremely difficult to manage the situation because the workload is already massive with a large amount of backlog. Branches will be shut as employees will be on election duty. It is also certain to inconvenience customers also, especially in rural areas,” said Avinash Tanti, lead district chief manager, Meerut district.While the situation has improved in urban areas where there are greater opportunities for cashless transactions, the distress caused by currency shortage has not eased in rural parts of the state. Gokalpur, a village on the outskirts of Meerut, has one branch of Syndicate Bank, which caters to six other villages, a total population of 20,000. “We are still only getting cash twice a week. Sometimes, they give us Rs 3,000, sometimes Rs 5,000 and there are long queues,” said Munna Lal, former gram pradhan of Gokalpur.A highly-placed source within the banking industry told TOI that bank branches are required to function at more than 100% capacity to bring situation to normal. “If banks are forced to shut down now, the distress to rural customers will be significant,” he added.“Bank employees will be on election duty for six days; three for training and three during polling, and for these days most branches will be shut as employees for almost every branch in the region have been assigned election duty,” said Ravi Kant Singh, district coordinatior, State Bank of India, Meerut.The National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW), on January 12, had written to the Election Commission (EC), requesting them to exempt bank officials from election duty for the five states going to polls. “They didn’t even bother to respond and then we heard about duties being assigned to bank employees. Nobody seems to want to understand the pressure that we have been put under due to demonetisation. Bank employees have been working 12 to 18 hours a day for the past two months. The formalities of closing the financial year also need to be performed,” said NOBW vice president Ashwani Rana.

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