Par panel for quota on banks, RBI boards

NEW DELHI: A parliamentary panel has favoured appointing a minimum number of directors from the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe communities on the boards of public sector banks and Reserve Bank of India.

"The government should devise an effective system to ensure that two directors from the SC community and one from the ST community are invariably appointed as part-time non-official directors both on the board of RBI and on each of the boards of nationalised banks at the earliest," the committee on the welfare of SCs and STs said in its latest report tabled in Parliament.

The panel, headed by Ratilal Kalidas Varma, observed that guidelines framed for selection of part-time directors have only a reference to giving representation to the SC/ST community but does not stipulate either the number of such directors or the timeframe for such appointments.

Banks have not taken the guidelines seriously in the absence of the above stipulations, it added. The report also said that the rural planning and credit department of RBI should address the needs of the SC/ST community "more vigorously" as their was no separate cell at the central bank for credit needs of SCs and STs exclusively.