The bank management’s statement that only a small portion of forex and cover operation will be transferred to Mumbai from Calcutta affecting the services of five to seven employees only has been challenged by the Foreign Department units of the SBI Staff Association and SBI Officers’ Association. In their opinion, it is impossible for a bank to continue the forex inter bank dealings, and cover operations work at Mumbai while the corporate dealings, funding\position and back office accounting will remain to be operated from foreign department in Calcutta. The associations suspect that the management is biding time to build the dealing room and other infrastructure facilities when the would transfer all work of foreign exchange department to Mumbai from Calcutta making the Foreign Department virtually non-existent in Calcutta . As the State Bank controls more than 40 percent of the forex business the shifting of the entire forex dealing and cover operations work would ultimately close down the Calcutta forex market and the forex broking firms . Consequently , other banks in Calcutta would also shift their dealing centres to Mumbai. This would jeopardize the economic development of West Bengal and the Eastern Region as a whole. Moreover, the staff of foreign department of the SBI in Callcutta would be rendered surplus .Besides, the employees of the forex broking firms will also lose their jobs.

The SBI management’s talk of its accountability to its more than a million shareholders sounds hollow. Where was the question of accountability when the management spent Rs. 800 crores in ‘Securities Scam’,Rs. 60 crores in ‘C.R. .B.Scam’and Rs. 133 crores in ‘Urea Scam’The responsibility to provide better and scam free service is different from blindly acting under regional influence. An English daily of Calcutta reported in July that the State Bank has written off bad debts amounting to Rs. 1,056 crores during the past three financial years .Is it a mark of efficient management?

Contrary to the State Bank management’s "commitment"to West Bengal, it is clear that the same management has systematically transferred various important jobs from central office establishments in Calcutta since 1959-60 to dilute the importance of the Calcutta office reduce the employment potential in West Bengal and encourage the regional imbalance. The aid of a powerful regional lobby and the personal whims of a top executive of the SBI the Mumbai office led to this state if forex dealing and cover operations from a make-shift place in Mumbai in the first week of July this year. The game apparently is clear the management will in course of next few months, shift the entire work of the foreign department from Calcutta to Mumbai