The bank employees and officers, under the aegis of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), will go on a two-day strike on March 15 and 16 opposing privatisation of public sector banks.
Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Krishna District Bank Employees’ Coordination Committee (KDBECC) secretary Y. Srinivasa Rao said that the UFBU in a meeting held at Hyderabad on February 9, had decided to launch a battle against all the retrograde, anti-people and anti-worker policies of the Central government.
The UFBU opposed the government’s move to privatise two public sector banks along with the IDBI Bank. It also opposed disinvestment in LIC, allowing FDI in the insurance sector up to 74%, aggressive disinvestment and sale of public sector undertakings, he said.
The UFBU consisting of 10 lakh bank employees and officers working in various banks across the country gave a clarion call to all bank staff to go on an agitation against the government’s move.
‘Gain to defaulters’
Bad loans and NPAs in the banks have been increasing year after year because of corporate defaulters. Instead of taking tough action on them, the government wanted to whitewash the Balance Sheets by shifting these bad loans from the books of the banks to an asset reconstruction company or a bad bank. This would only benefit the corporate defaulters and remove all bad loans from public notice and silently write them off. “The total deposits in public sector banks are ₹146 lakh crore. Privatisation of banks means handing over this huge savings of public to private corporates,” he said.
“People’s money is for their welfare and not for private corporate loot. But the entire profit is adjusted for bad loans of corporate companies,” he alleged.
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