SBI Pensioners’ Fraternity

Shri. B.G. Dandekar, a Doyen of SBI Pensioners’ Fraternity

When one speaks about Shri. B. G. alias Balasaheb Dandekar, he is automatically looked upon as a doyen of ‘SBI Pensioners’ Association, (Mumbai Circle)’ as well as ‘Federation of SBI Pensioners’ Associations’ working for the SBI Pensioners at the national level over two decades. He is most respected personality not only among the fraternity of SBI Pensioners in Mumbai Circle but also at the All India level. In true sense, he has been working hard as a torch holder for the SBI pensioners. He is popularly known as ‘Dada’ (means an elder brother). After seeking voluntary retirement in 1987 he immediately joined the SBI Pensioners’ Association, Mumbai Circle and flung himself in to the Associations’ work. He has recently completed 90 years of age and despite this, he has still been guiding the present Office Bearers of the Association with full dedication. In the recent past, whatever important decisions have been taken by the Bank in the interest of the Pensioners, resulting in to monetary and other benefits, Shri. Dandekar along with Shri. S. B. Gokhale has played a very crucial role. Whenever the Pensioners’ Association was successful while fighting for the cause of Pensioners, Shri. Dandekar had always a noteworthy share in their success. These facts are beyond doubt. Shri. Dandekar was born on the 16th November, 1928 in Jambhulpada village of Raigad District in Maharashtra. After passing SSC examination he served in a Government Department for two years and later on in 1951 joined Imperial Bank of India, as a typist. From 1955 to 1974 he was in Personnel Department of the Central Office (now Corporate Centre) of the Bank. During this period, he was associated with the work of preparing agreements for Bipartite Settlements (including Desai Tribunal Work), wage revisions / negotiations, preparation of various statements, collection of various information and data etc. While performing all these jobs, he devotedly learned the minute details relating to all these issues and virtually earned the name in these matters. This benefited him to a great extent while working in the Association / Federation.

He has worked on various posts in the Bank and in many branches in Mumbai Circle. During service, he was highly instrumental in establishing ‘Maharashtra Mandal’ in the LHO, Mumbai, on 14th October 1964. The ‘Maharashtra Mandal’ was inaugurated at the auspicious hands of late Shri. Pralhad Keshav Atre, a versatile personality in almost all the fields viz. all sorts of Literature, Education, Politics, Oratory, Film Production/Direction and what not. Late Shri. V. N. Nadkarni, Ex-Chairman of SBI and Late Shri. N. S. Kulkarni, ex-CGM and Ex- President of Federation of SBI Pensioners’ Association and SBI Pensioners’ Association (Mumbai Circle), were present for this programme. He was greatly instrumental in successfully completing not only in time but within the estimated cost, the first Housing Society of the ‘SBI Employees’ in the country. In May 1960, the Foundation stone of this Society was laid down by Shri. P. C. Bhattacharya, the then Chairman of SBI. He was also fortunate to inaugurate this Society on completion in May 1961.

Shri. Dandekar, after retirement immediately started working for the Pensioners’ Association. In forming the Mumbai Zonal Sub-Centre, he had equal participation along with Late SarvaShri. V. R. Kuddyadi and S. S. Pandit. Initially he worked as a Secretary and President of Mumbai ZSC. Thereafter in Mumbai Circle Association he was Joint Secretary for one year and then he worked as a President from July 1999 to July 2004. Various qualities such as possessing indepth knowledge of all the pension matters, keeping abreast of the minute details of Bipartite Agreements, willingness to work hard, fervour to fight for the cause of pensioners, ability to take all together and carry out the tasks, capacity to understand the opposite persons, passion to help the pensioners’ fraternity, etc. possessed by him, helped him to work on the various posts in the Federation for a very long period of 22 years. This is evident from the following details:

Posts Held

Period i) Secretary From 04.03.1990 to 02.05.1993 ii) General Secretary From 02.05.1993 to 06.07.1999 iii) Vice President From 06.07.1999 to 15.11.2005 iv) President From 15.11.2005 to 19.01.2009

v) Adviser From 19.01.2009 to 30.03.2012

While working in the Mumbai Circle Association and the Federation, Shri. Dandekar put very hard work and took relentless efforts for getting justice to the Pensioners and was instrumental in getting many benefits for the Pensioners and solving their long pending issues. In particular, he was personally helpful in securing pension to many family Pensioners. In deference to the great work done by him, in the ‘Mumbai Circle Annual General Meeting’ held on 6th July 2005, at Nashik, he was felicitated by awarding ‘Late Shri. L. N. Pabalkar, Gold Medal’. To a great extent, he was involved in solving the problems as well as getting various benefits to the Pensioners while working in the Association/Federation. He is having lion’s share in securing the following benefits to the Pensioners:

I. 13-2-1992 - Bank introduced the system of issuing "Pension Payment Advice" to Pensioners. II. 10-2-1995 - There were complaints from Members for not getting the usual medicines from the Bank's dispensaries. Hence the issue was taken up with Central Office by our Federation. Therefore, instructions were issued to all LHOs to do the needful, and the Pensioners started getting medicines. III. 28-3-1995 - Pensionary benefits extended to employees of Banks taken over by SBI. In this regard, Bhopal Circle Association played prominent role to get the proper decision with the help of late Hon'ble Shri. Madhavrao Scindia.

IV. 12-5-1995 - After presenting some live cases, at our request the Bank agreed to extend the benefit of additional 30% of pay (Maximum Rs.150/- p.m.) to pensioners whose pension was calculated on the basis of salary scale prior to 1978/79. This benefit was also extended to Family Pensioners from that group. V. 18-5-1996 - State Bank of India Retired Employees' Medical Benefit Scheme. (REMBS). After discussions with the Management of the Bank, the scheme was finalized. The scheme was opened for Membership w. e. f. 1-7-1996. This was the greatest achievement of the Federation.

VI. 28-5-1996 - The Bank accepted the suggestion of sanctioning of Family Pension while sanctioning pension to the employee. The facility was also extended to those pensioners who retired prior to 1-11-1993. Incidentally, this suggestion was made in Mumbai Unit's AGM. The Meeting was attended by Top Executives of Central Office.

VII. 29-6-1996 - Following suggestions made in the AGM of Mumbai Circle Pensioners' Association were approved. a. Date of payment of Pension - Last but 4th working day, b. Cheque book facility on pension account to be extended to Bank's Pensioners, VIII. Commutation amount should be paid to legal heirs in the following circumstances: a. If a pensioner dies after medical examination, but before the sanction of commutation and b. If a pensioner dies after the commutation is sanctioned but before it is credited to his / her pension account.

The above was approved only after pointing out a few "live cases". c. We also pointed out another case where a pensioner applied for commutation, however, in medical examination his age was increased resulting in decrease in ‘Commutation Factor. In such circumstances, pensioner should have right to withdraw the application for commutation. This proposal was also accepted by the Bank. IX. 31-10-2000 - GOI directed the Bank to revise the pension w. e. f. 1-3-1999 as per formula advised in Government of India letter F. No. 1/5/91/IR dated 23-2-1999.

The formula is as under:

a) Employees/officers having pay up to Rs. 8,500/- p. m. 50% of the pay; b) Employees/officers having pay exceeding Rs. 8,500/- p. m. 40% of the pay subject to minimum of Rs. 4,250/- p.m. The above formula is applicable to those pensioners whose pension was calculated on the salary where D.A. up to 1148 points was merged. No reason has been stated in the above letter, why "40%" to a few employees. Similarly, when the salary scales were revised in 1992/93, why the formula is effective from 1-3-1999”.

This scheme was implemented as per C.O. letter No. CDO/PM / 16/CIR/34 of 31-102000. Though unsatisfactory, senior most officers' pension (Basic) increased from 28.71% to 40.00% of basic pay. (Basic pension increased from Rs. 4,250/- p.m. to Rs. 5,920/- p.m.) This was only due to serving a notice through Advocate. However, revision based on similar to above formula has been done in respect of all who retired after 31-10-2002. Revision of pension in respect of employees who retired after 31-10-2002 has been done in consultation with both the Federations of serving staff. It is worth mentioning that Shri. Dandekar, did not confine his deep and thorough knowledge of Pension with himself only. During the period 1974 to 2004, he published a detailed article consisting of 14 chapters in ‘Samvad’ (the inhouse monthly publication of SBIPA’s Mumbai Circle) for information of our Pensioners. He has taken efforts even to incorporate the information about Pension right from the year 1805 (i. e. during the period of ‘Bank of Bengal’), various

schemes of Pension, how to calculate pension with detailed examples etc. All this information would serve as a guiding torch to the present employees of the SBI.

Shri. Dandekar is always described by many of our Pensioners as an encyclopaedia on Pension matters and held in high esteem. A few years back he developed very weak eyesight. He was not able to read or write for almost a period of two years. It is pertinent to mention that despite this serious ailment he did not sit idle. During this precarious condition also, he used to work very hard by getting the papers / documents read through the other Office Bearers (mainly Late Shri. B. P. Khare from Thane). He used to dictate them the important and urgent matters. Later both the corneas of Shri. Dandekar were replaced. This indicates his passion to help the Pensioners. In his speech he always appeals for eye donation. Shri. Dandekar lost his wife three years back. However, this has never affected his work and he continued to work for the Pensioners’ Association. In September 2017 Mumbai Circle Association had their 43rd Annual General Meeting at Aurangabad and this was attended by Shri. Dandekar. He was felicitated specially in this AGM. Even at this age, he has been attending the Circle Association’s ‘Circle Managing Committee’s Meetings’ at Thane where he stays. While working as a General Secretary of the Federation, he has done tremendous hard work. He used to invariably attend the Annual General Meetings of other Circle Associations and tried to understand the difficulties of those Pensioners. After coming back to Mumbai, he would without any hesitation, follow the cases with Corporate Centre and helped those Pensioners to solve their problems. He has guided the Pensioners’ Associations of other Circles on various aspects as during that time some of the Associations were in nascent stage. He has a peculiar habit of keeping records not only of important matters but even of petty matters. Even after having a telephonic conversation or discussion he would note down the details in the diary and follow up the matter with the concerned persons. He is an ardent follower of punctuality, discipline, neatness etc. In pretty old days there was no system of discussions / negotiations between the Pensioners and the Bank Executives. The doors for discussions / negotiations were opened by the Bank Management in 1989, only after the establishment of the Pensioners’ Associations/ Federation. The decision of the Supreme Court in 1988 to grant 50% pension to the 4th and 5th BPS Pensioners, in a case filed by the IBI Pensioners’ Association (Delhi Circle) helped open the Bank’s doors for discussions/ negotiations. Therefore, when the discussions started with the Bank Management on the various issues of Pensioners, since beginning the participation of Shri. Dandekar was very important as he was well versed with the pensioners’ issues. He has an ability to convince the opposite party through discussions, that too in a calm manner. He has been maintaining good rapport with the Bank Officials. Because of his studious nature and negotiating skills he has been able to sort out number of important issues although the Federation/ Association has no recognition by the Bank.

Shri. Dandekar has maintained good relationship with the leaders of Working Staff Federations so that they can help in solving the problems of the Pensioners. Towards this end he has made lot of correspondence with these leaders and tried very hard with the only intention of solving the most important issue of 50% pension. Unfortunately, during the initial period his efforts hardly bore any fruits. But all his efforts have now started bearing fruits since now these leaders of the Federation of working Officers/Staff have started realising that in a period to come they would also be facing the same problems which the Pensioners are facing today. Therefore, these leaders are now taking up the issues of the Pensioners with the concerned authorities.

Shri. Dandekar always make a special mention of SarvaShri. Late B. R. alias Bhaskarrao Gadre, (Ex-CGM), the Ex-President of the Federation and P. S. Santhanakrishnan (ExDMD), Ex-President of the Federation, to whom he is highly obliged as from both of them he always received guidance while working in the Bank as well as Association / Federation. He specially thanks Shri. V. M. Gokhale, (Ex-DGM), Ex- President of SBIPA, Mumbai Circle, for his unstinted cooperation while working in the Federation. He places on record deep gratitude for good amount of cooperation extended by Shri. K. S. Dhande and Late SarvaShri. V. R. Kuddyadi, N. S. Kulkarni, S. G. Rabade and B. P. Khare, then Treasurer of Federation. He is also thankful to Shri. S. B. Gokhale, Senior Vice-President of the Federation & the President of SBIPA, Mumbai Circle and all his team members. Last but not the least Shri. Dandekar is also highly obliged to his wife Late Sau. Kamalatai, Son Shri. Shrikant, and Daughter-in-law Sau. Deepti, as without their support, he could not have done so much of hard work and dedication for the cause of the Pensioners. Let us wish a very healthy, contented and long life to Shri. Dandekar.

“Jeevet Sharadaha Shatam” Vilas Gandhe, (Retired AGM), General Secretary, SBIPA (Mumbai Circle), Pune. M- 9371218775