A voluntary retirement scheme, and freeze on new recruitment is likely to result in an asset-liability mismatch at the State Bank of India's pension fund in few years.
SBI, at present, has as many as 50,000 pensions holders, another 52,000 will be added in six years. The number of employees at SBI, which stands at 2,25,000, will then be reduced to 1,70,000 if there are no fresh recruitments.
The management was already considering the idea of making the pension fund a contributory one for new employees, while it was toying with the idea of discontinuing with the bank's contribution to the provident fund for fresh recruits.
The corpus of the pension fund as on March 2004 stood at Rs 7,550 crore (Rs 75.50 billion) and the bank had provided for Rs 1,494 crore (Rs 14.94 billion) under three heads last year.
It provided around Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) under regular provisions, while another Rs 663 crore (Rs 6.63 billion) was contributed as special provision. On account of interest it provided Rs 619 crore (Rs 6.19 billion).
Sources close to the development said the bank has stopped its monthly contribution to the fund from July, and has decided to make a lumpsum contribution after evaluating the fund through actuaries.
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