Bankers working on frontlines, but without protection, say kin of deceased staff

‘The government is to blame. This disease was there last year too. They knew the dangers. Everyone visits banks so they should have protected the employees,’ says Agra-based Sunita Chaudhary who lost her husband.

Working on the frontlines to keep banks running through COVID-19, about 1,300 bank employees lost their lives to the pandemic in the past year, leaving behind families who are questioning whether enough was done to protect their loved ones. In 2021 alone, over 600 staffers from 10 private banks and 12 public sector banks have died of COVID-19 so far, out of the total of 1,300 since March 2020, All-India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) general secretary C.H. Venkatachlam said. To Agra-based Sunita Chaudhary, who lost her 58-year-old husband Shiv Shankar Chaudhary on April 18, it was clear who was to be blamed. Her husband, she said, was the branch manager of a public sector bank in Agra and had been going to work despite having diabetes.