Banks Have Lost Over 1,000 Employees To Covid, Many More Infected: Report

The banking sector is slotted as an essential service and partially exempt from the lockdown orders

Indian banks have lost more than a thousand employees and many more are infected, according to a industry body, underscoring the heavy toll virus has taken in the country battling the world's worst coronavirus crisis. "We have lost more than 1,000 colleagues already," S. Nagarajan, general secretary of the All India Bank Officers' Association told Bloomberg News over phone on Saturday. "Bank employees are frontline workers and the virus is affecting them." With more than 24 million people sickened in the country and over 2,66,200 dead amid the world's fastest-growing outbreak, bulk of states are in a lockdown with strict stay-at-home orders. But the banking sector is slotted as an essential service and partially exempt from the lockdown orders. Lenders are allowed in some cases to call as much as 50% of their workforce in bank branches to avoid any disruption in banking services. Not Forthcoming