On 22nd October, 2021 we had an appointment with Shri. Jagdish Tungariaji, General Manager, Greater Mumbai Zone and Shri Patnayakji, Dy. General Manager.

Following points were discussed in detail by myself and Anisha Hirlekar, Working President of our Women's Wing.

1) On receipt of any complaint of Sexual Harassment, immediate transfer of the person against whom complaint is made should be affected so that he cannot influence, suppress, modify the facts of the case. Exploitation of the complainant as well as the witnesses is a common occurrence after such event which needs to be taken care of properly.

2) Management must act immediately on receipt of any such complaint rather than taking longer time then expected to conduct such inquiry.

3) In Backbay Reclamation Branch case, management has shown leniency and the reports of inquiry were not been made available to the complainants. This should be avoided in future.

4) Complainants are not allowed Escorts even when demanded thereby suppressing their fundamental rights to safety and freedom of speech. We have demanded to provide an Escort at the Times of inquiry.

The legal points will be checked by management and will be
information.

5) Whenever any lady complains at Zonal/regional level, we requested them that during the course of inquiry/investigation/meeting with the liasoning officer one officer bearer from our Women's wing team should accompany her.

6)All branches display contact numbers of higher authorities as well as Banking Ombudsman for customers to lodge their grievances.

Similarly we would like to display the contact numbers of our ladies wing in all the branches so that women can contact us freely as well as immediately in case of any grievances. Similarly if a customer misbehaves in branches with any lady staff there should be a bold display of consequences of his misbehavior and the help line numbers of management personnel should be provided.

7) Transfers on medical and maternity grounds should be given topmost priority without the underlying condition of substitute. Also transfers on marriage and spouse joining grounds should not be delayed.

8) Structural meeting be kept which help timely discussion and attention.

9) Since we are a registered Welfare Association in Bank of Baroda a check off facility should be provided in HR- CONNECT to all ladies staff.

9)Our welfare association is the sole bargaining institution for women employees in Bank of Baroda. You might agree with us that issues related to women require utmost confidentiality. Also many a times we are required to undertake one to one meetings with women employees regarding discussions that require utmost secrecy. Also we are in possession of certain documents which are of very critical / sensitive nature and need to be kept safely.

We therefore are in urgent need of an office space for our Welfare Association that can help serve both the purposes of safe keeping of documents and holding meetings with members.

Almost for all the above points we got positive response from both the heads. Let’s hope for the BEST.

I thank all the office bearers’ team who were present with us giving healthy support for today’s lengthy discussion.


Deepali Jain
General Secretary