NEW DELHI: The state-wide strike organized by several bank employees' unions under the umbrella of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) to protest the proposed privatisation, would affect banking services across the state on December 16 and 17, 2021.
The strike was called to protest the government's proposal to introduce the Banking Laws Amendment Bill, 2021, at the recent winter session of parliament. Through the Bill, the government intends to privatize two public sector banks.
"According to the current information, the government has chosen to privatize two public sector banks and one general insurance firm," said Naresh Gaur, the union convener. People's money is handled by banks and insurance organizations. Privatizing banks entails entrusting the public's money to private individuals with vested interests"
"Because of corporate defaulters, bad loans and nonperforming assets (NPAs) in banks have been increasing year after year. Rather than adopting strong measures against them, the government aims to clean up banks' balance sheets by transferring bad loans from their books to the Assets Reconstruction Company or the Bad Bank. This will only assist corporate defaulters, as it will hide all bad loans from public view and allow them to be secretly written off," he noted.
Privatizing PSBs, according to Sanjay Das, general secretary of the All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), will harm priority sectors of the economy as well as credit flow to self-help groups and the rural economy.
C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), stated that "we have been resisting the policies of banking reforms that are aimed at undermining public sector banks" for the past 25 years under the banner of UFBU.
"I stand with bankers," Hansraj Meena, a political activist, tweeted in favor of the bank unions. The government should pay attention to bankers' demands."
On November 29-30, the UFBU agreed to begin a sit-in (dharna) protest on December 3, which is currently taking place in numerous locations across the country, and on December 4, protest marches would be held in all state capitals. On December 10, a Twitter campaign is planned, and online petitions will be delivered to the Prime Minister on December 14.
As part of banking sector reforms, the Union government sold its majority ownership in IDBI Bank to LIC in 2019 and merged 14 public sector banks in the previous four years.
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