Action against 31 employees of PSU banks, LIC taken
PTI
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NEW DELHI: A day after a web portal alleged instances of money laundering by some state owned banks and LIC, the government today said action has been taken against 31 officers and employees, including suspension, for violation of various regulations.
“So far, 15 officers/employees of various public sector banks have been suspended including one from insurance sector. Beside it, ten officers of PSBs have been divested of their work and six have been asked to proceed on leave”, Finance Ministry said.
The action against the employees has been taken for violation of banking norms and regulations, it added.
This followed a directive by Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Takru to CMDs of public sector banks and LIC to take immediate action following Cobrapost, Red Spider 2 expose which was released yesterday.
“…certain PSBs have already taken action and in some cases, the work is still in progress. More action taken reports are expected in near future,” the release said without providing details of employees or the banks.
Takru has also sought action taken report from bank chiefs and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) “on utmost priority” in this regard.
The portal had said in a release that: “In its continuing undercover operation, spanning several months, Cobrapost finds dozens and dozens of major public sector banks, and many more private banks, across the country are blatantly involved in money laundering, as are major insurers. In all, 23 banks and insurance companies have been exposed.”
Those named in the expose include SBI, LIC, Punjab National Bank (PNB), Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, Reliance Life, Tata AIA, Yes Bank, Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, IDBI Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Dena Bank, Corporation Bank, Allahabad Bank, Central Bank of India, Dhanlaxmi Bank, Federal Bank, DCB Bank and Birla Sun Life.
Besides Finance Ministry, the insurance regulator IRDA had said it too was examining the allegations and that “action would be taken against the guilty at the earliest”.
AI to resume Dreamliner flights next week
PTI
NEW DELHI: Air India today decided to resume next week domestic operations of the Dreamliner aircraft, grounded for four months due to a battery problem, and replace 19 aged Airbus A-320s with new leased ones.
The Air India Board, which met here, was briefed about the progress of making changes in the batteries of six Boeing 787 Dreamliners, owned by Air India, airline sources said.
While the first domestic flight of the Dreamliner would take place next week, the national carrier would fly to the first international destination by the third week of May, they said.
A team of Boeing engineers and those from Air India have been replacing the new packages of the lithium ion batteries. The battery sparks in two of these aircraft owned by Japanese airlines had led to the grounding of 50 Dreamliners worldwide mid-January.
The Board also decided to replace 14 AI-owned and five leased aircraft, which are 20-22 years of age. The leased aircraft would be returned to the lessors while those owned by Air India would be phased out gradually.
The process, likely to start from the third quarter of this financial year, would require about 10-12 months to be completed, the sources said.
With these replacements, the airline would have a narrow-body fleet size of 62 aircraft.
The new aircraft of the A-320 family — that is A-319 s, A-320s and A-321s, would have 180 seats in an all-economy configuration. These would replace the old planes which had both business and economy classes.
The Board also approved harmonised service regulations for all employees of Air India, who were so far governed by different service rules of the erstwhile Indian Airlines and pre-merger Air India.
