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Bank of Maharashtra Faces Massive Staff Shortage, Overburdening Employees
Bank of Maharashtra’s staff shortage has led to increasing workload and employees’ stress, with clerical strength dropping 42% since 2012-2013, while business per employee has nearly tripled, affecting work-life balance and employees’ well-being.
Author: Neha Bodke
Published: March 6, 2025
Bank of Maharashtra, one of India’s public sector banks (PSBs), is struggling with a serious staff shortage crisis, mainly in its clerical and sub-staff cadre, raising huge concerns regarding operations and customer service quality. According to data provided by the All India Bank of Maharashtra Employees Federation (AIBOMEF), out of the more than 2500 branches and 51 zonal offices, a staggering 1173 branches are functioning without any permanent sub-staff. The bank operates across the country.
Dependency on Outsourcing and Temporary Staff
To manage the situation, the bank is mostly dependent on outsourced, temporary, and contractual employees. These employees are often handed the sensitive tasks like cash transactions, gold loans, handling loan documents, and security items. According to AIBOMEF, this practice heightens operational and fraud risks, compromising security as the temporary employees often lack formal training, experience, and accountability that permanent staff provide.
Decreasing Clerical Strength and Poor Retention
There is the same scenario when it comes to clerical staff. As per the union’s data, in 2012-13, Bank of Maharashtra had 6065 clerks across its network. By 2023-24, this number had reduced drastically to just 3509 clerks, despite the bank’s total business increasing from Rs 1.70 lakh crore to Rs 4.71 lakh crore, during the same period of time. This shows that while the workload has more than doubled, the clerical workforce has reduced by nearly 42%.
Courtesy: AIBOMEF
Clerk to Officer Promotions Adding to the Crisis
With the retirements, resignations, and promotions taking place simultaneously, the clerical staff void continues to increase, dominantly affecting customer service, branch efficiency, and the employee well-being.
While speaking to Kanal, Devidas Tuljapurkar, General Secretary of AIBOMEF, stated:
“As of today, the strength of clerks is very poor, but at the same time, we have to balance their career progression. Those who join as clerks aspire to become officers, and for that, our union in all banks has signed agreements ensuring clerk-to-officer promotions. However, the real problem is that recruitment in the clerical cadre is almost negligible. Earlier, the number of clerks promoted to officers used to be huge, but now it’s drastically reduced because recruitment is happening only for specialized categories like IT, where existing clerks are not eligible.”
He further added, “With very few clerks, officers are forced to take on clerical duties, leading to shortcuts in branch processes. Essential securities like End Of Business Verification (EBVS) are ignored, increasing the risk of operational fraud. We cannot stop promotions, but without regular recruitment, customer service and branch functioning will be severely compromised.”
Recruitment Data Highlights the Crisis
Courtesy: AIBOMEF
The union’s official data in the above image states a clearer picture of the recruitment and retention failure.
The overall impact of this issue is that there are now nearly 1000 vacant clerical positions across the bank.
Increasing Workload and Employees’ Stress
The staff shortage crisis has left the employees overburdened. The union pointed out that the average business handled per employee has jumped from Rs 12 crore in 2012-13 to Rs 34 crore in 2023-24, while the average clerical staff per branch has declined from 3.5 to just 1.4 clerks.
As a result, extreme shortage of staff issues has created overstress among employees, making it difficult for them to take leaves and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Union’s Demand: Immediate Recruitment and Staff Assessment
The union has strongly demanded that the bank immediately conduct a proper staff assessment and recruit adequate clerical and sub-staff to restore the stability. Failure to address these long-pending demands has led the union to call for a nationwide strike on March 20, 2025.