Days after the death of a woman employee of Ernst & Young (EY) India allegedly due to overwork in Pune, a woman employee of HDFC Bank in Lucknow allegedly died under work pressure.
The victim named Sadaf Fatima was posted as additional deputy vice-president at HDFC Bank’s Vibuti Khand branch in Gomti Nagar. Her colleagues claimed that Fatima died in office after she fell off her chair inside the bank's premises. She was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead and her body was sent to undergo a postmortem.
Reacting to Fatima's death, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav said the work pressure and stress has become the same everywhere from government to private jobs and people are working out of ‘compulsion’.
“The condition of employed people has become worse than bonded labourers because they do not even have the right to speak. Government is there to solve problems, not to give baseless suggestions,” Akhilesh Yadav posted X.
The SP chirf took a dig at finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's recent suggestion that the youth under work pressure need lessons on stress ‘management’.
“Instead of improving the working conditions, the BJP minister who is lecturing the youth of the country to develop the strength to withstand pressure, is further distressing the youth in this environment of grief, and is requested that if her government cannot provide any solace, cannot bring about any improvement, then it should not do so, but should not increase public anger with its heartless and insensitive advice in the context of this incident,” he wrote.
What happened at EY Pune?
The victim, Anna Sebastian Perayil passed her CA exams in 2023 and worked at EY India for four months as part of the Audit team at S R Batliboi, a member firm of EY Global, in Pune. Her promising career was cut short as she passed away due to what her mother claimed as “glorification of overwork”.
In her letter, Anna’s mother claimed that it was her daughter’s first job, and she was excited about joining the company. Within just four months, however, she succumbed to “excessive workload.” The victim also worked late into the night and on weekends, returned to her PG accommodation completely exhausted on most days. She was also burdened with “backbreaking work” as a newcomer, the letter claimed, noting that nobody from the company attended her funeral.
