On Tuesday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked public sector banks PSBs to fill the backlog vacancies of Scheduled Castes SCs in time bound manner and enhance their coverage in all schemes.
Sitharaman made a statement at a meeting to look at the performance of Public Sector Banks PSBs on Credit and other welfare schemes for Scheduled Castes, with the Chairman Managing Director CMD of the PSBs.
Sitharaman reviewed the various measures taken by PSBs to give credit to persons belonging to the SC community and their welfare in terms of reservation, backlog vacancies, functioning of welfare, and grievances redressal mechanism. She also urged PSBs to make proper digital records for jobs being outsourced, especially for positions like Safai Karamcharis starting October 1, 2022.
Sitharaman also directed that the redressal of all pending grievances about the SC community may be taken up in the special drive by the Department of Financial Services DFS from October 2. She advised PSB heads to look into the need for capacity building and entrepreneurship development as SCs account for about 18 per cent of the total workforce of banks and financial institutions. FIs FM Sitharaman asked CEOs of PSBs and FIs to provide forward and backward links through a convergence of various schemes for SCs by government departments while giving them financial assistance. Sitharaman also directed banks to inform the National Commission for Scheduled Castes twice a year about SC-related credit and recruitment.
The Finance Minister said that the goal of the meeting was to bring all stakeholders together for the betterment and upliftment of the SC community. She stated that the performance in schemes like the National Rural Livelihood Mission NRLM, where 21 per cent of the credit-linked Self-Help Groups SHGs were SCs, and the street vendor Atma Nirbhar Nidhi SVANidhi, which has 19 per cent SCs, is satisfactory.
The review meeting was also attended by Vijay Sampla, Chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Castes, NCSCs like Subhash Ramnath Pardhi and Anju Bala, Union Minister of State for Finance Bhagwat Kisanrao Karad and Sanjay Malhotra, Secretary, Department of Financial Services DFS, along with senior officials of the DFS and NCSCs.