Plan no-gift policy, 2-year sabbatical for women: SBI Chmn - Moneycontrol.com

Arundhati Bhattacharya is an icon, being the first woman to head India's largest bank. But it's going to be tough act. The banking sector is itself passing through troubled times. As if to test the gutsy woman even more, a corruption charge has been laid on one of her senior lieutenants. CNBC-TV18's Gopika Gopakumar caught up with Bhattacharya on a host of issues.

Arundhati Bhattacharya is busy putting in place a moral code of conduct at the country's largest bank. This after  SBI deputy managing director Shyamala Acharya was accused of taking bribes.

Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson, SBI, says: "We will try at this point of time to have a no-gift taking and no-gift giving policy."

But this hasn't taken away from her zest to keep SBI the leader of the pack. Last week after a no policy rate action by the RBI, SBI stunned the market with a cut in home loan rates for new borrowers.

For Bhattachrya, SBI is not her only concern. Being the most powerful banker in the country, she has strong views on elections and government policies.

Bhattacharya says: "My only wish, government has an adequate majority to take policy in a consistent way, without too many roadblocks. We need to see investment coming back to the country. Investors are not saying lay out the red carpet for us. They are saying there should be clarity and consistency. They need to know the rules of the game. They cannot be applied retrospectively."

Being the first woman head of a 206 year old institution, Bhattacharya is now trying to put in place some women-friendly policies at SBI. "Two years extra sabbatical that we have managed to give our women employees, should they need to take a break and the reasons could be as I said children or parents or in-laws, whatever would be the reason we would allow them two years extra break. This ofcourse has been given to women though probably we will also extend it at some point of time to men who are single parents," she says.

Even though she is only three months into her job, she admits she has the most challenging job as the head of the country's largest bank compared to her predecessors. But she is all hope that 2014 will turn out to be better than 2013.

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