The alleged suicide of a 49-year-old man has put the plight of ATM security guards under the lens.
Arup Banerjee was found hanging from the ceiling of a one-room accommodation in Belgharia on June 25, police said.
Arup, who manned a Bank of Baroda ATM in Nagerbazar, had recently lost his job. A case of unnatural death has been registered at Belgharia police station.
Between March and April, around 180 people at 94-odd ATMs of the PSU bank lost their jobs, alleged a member of a union representing them.
These men are not on the bank’s payroll. They are hired by private agencies that are either vendors or sub-vendors of the bank.
Bank of Baroda is alleged to have terminated its contract with a vendor, AGS India, a banking automation solutions provider. AGS, in turn, had contracted two sub-vendors who provided men at these ATMs.
A senior official of the bank denied issuing any termination notice but declined to comment further.
Arup left behind his wife and two daughters, one of them a Madhyamik aspirant and the other training to be a nurse.
“He was compelled to end his life. He was in severe mental agony ever since the job loss. He had borrowed some money. Unable to cope with the pressure, he was forced to take the drastic step,” said his wife, Santwana Banerjee.
Arup was the sole earning member of the family.
“In March this year, we were informed that the bank terminated the contract, affecting 107 workers at 53 ATMs across Bengal. In phases over the next two months, 41 more ATMs and over 70 more men lost their jobs. In most of these cases, the sub-vendors sent notices on WhatsApp to these workers. Many of them have not received their salaries for April and May,” said Syed Md Sahabuddin, general secretary, Bengal Provincial Banks’ Contract Employees’ Association.
Following a strike call on April 17 by the union, the office of the chief labour commissioner took notice of the matter. At least three meetings have been convened by the deputy chief labour commissioner in Kolkata, each attended by representatives of the bank, the vendor, sub-vendors and the union.
The union has alleged that the bank and its vendors violated a status quo — that barred any job cuts and delay in the payment of salaries to the guards — imposed by the deputy chief labour commissioner at the first meeting on April 3.
The problem is not limited to Bank of Baroda alone. By the estimate of bank unions, over 5,000 ATM guards have lost their jobs in Bengal alone.
Madhab Ghosh, 56, deployed at a Bank of Baroda ATM on BT Road, has lost his job. “I have been guarding ATMs for over 20 years. At this age, where would I find another job,” said the father of two.
Even before their jobs were taken away, the payment of salaries was allegedly irregular. So were the provident fund and gratuity deductions, alleged guards.
“All the banks, public or private, are now focussing more on CCTV cameras at the expense of human beings,” said Rajen Nagar, president of the All India Bank Employees Association.
Mausumi Mitra, deputy general manager of the Kolkata zone, who attended the meetings, told The Telegraph on Saturday: “Bank of Baroda has not issued any termination notice. I am not the authorised person to comment on this.”
Kaushik Roy of AGS, who attended the meetings with the deputy labour commissioner, told The Telegraph: “We have already paid the contractors for clearing the dues of workers for April and May”.
Pranab Biswas, managing director of Global Force Management, one of the two sub-vendors, said the workers hired by him had received the payments for April and May.
