From bank sweeper to Assistant General Manager: An SBI employee’s journey

Pratiksha Tondwalkar’s career at the State Bank of India began in 1985, when she joined as a sweeper earning around Rs 60 to Rs 65 a month, and ended with her becoming an Assistant General Manager at the same institution, according to an interview with the bank employee.

Widowed at 20 after her husband, a bookbinder at SBI, died in a road accident, Tondwalkar was left to raise their one-year-old son alone with no stable income. She visited the Mumbai bank branch to collect her late husband’s pending salary and asked the branch manager for any available job. Five months later, SBI hired her as a sweeper.

Her days began at 5 am, cleaning an entire three-floor branch — sweeping, mopping and cleaning eight to ten toilets — before it opened at 8:30 am. She then worked at a shoe manufacturing unit, attaching soles to children’s shoes, before returning home to care for her son and study at night.

Exposure to educated bank staff convinced Tondwalkar that education was her path forward, despite having left school after Class 7 due to poverty and early marriage. She enrolled in a night college in Mumbai’s Vikhroli area, cleared her Class 12 exams, and later completed a degree in Psychology.