Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Teacher to senior bank manager: a satisfying life

"A revolution in agriculture and education is needed and only the public sector banks are capable of providing for it"

K.V. Acharya

K.V. Acharya, former general secretary of the Indian Overseas Bank Officers' Association, is packing up to leave for Delhi after retiring from service. He takes time off to reminisce about his stint in the trade union movement and discuss the legacy he leaves behind.

After completing schooling and earning bachelor's degrees in arts and law in Udipi, Mr. Acharya was a teacher for four years. "Teaching was my first love," he smiles.

He joined the Indian Overseas Bank in 1959 as a clerk and retired last year as senior manager. His association with the trade union began after he moved to Delhi three years later.

He counts the efforts he made to convince the two existing unions of the time to merge among his achievements. He was able to indulge his `first love' again at the IOB Staff College in 1983.

He moved to Chennai in 1991 to be available at the head office and interact better with the management.

The officers' association held several campaigns to end the bank's loss-making streak. Their initiatives have paid off, he says, with the bank posting some Rs.750 crore as profit last year. He was part of the All India Bank Officers' Confederation and of the core committee for negotiations that decided the latest wage revisions and pension settlements for officers.

However, Mr. Acharya is and will be remembered for the many social responsibility projects that the officers' association undertook under his leadership. Officers contributed from their salaries and subscriptions to rebuild school buildings on the cyclone-devastated Orissa coast and donated solar-powered lamps to the village of Kanadukathan near Karaikudi, birthplace of M. Chidambaram Chettiar, founder of the bank. The association has assisted handloom weavers by sponsoring an exhibition at their triennial conference in 2002 and 2005.

The `obsession with reforms' worries him. It is the public sector banks that have contributed largely to the economic development of the country.

"There is no need for us to become globally competitive, when the rural sector needs us the most.

"A revolution in agriculture and education is needed and only the public sector banks are capable of providing for it," he says.

He wants to continue to associate himself with social service projects.

For now, he is glad to rejoin his wife, Bhavani, a physical education lecturer and former national athlete, again in Delhi but is reluctant to leave Chennai behind.

"It's the best metro. Academics, culture, religion, social service and technology ... the best of all the worlds is there in Chennai," he says.

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