Banking operations will be impacted around the country because from around 40 private and state-run banks, almost 10 lakh bankers went out for a strike to protest against the central government’s banking policies, said a union leader said on Thursday.
“The strike is on. We are not aware of any case filed by the banks or the Indian Banks Association (IBA) to restrain the nine unions of UFBU (United Forum of Bank Unions) from striking,” C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).
The strike is being done to protest against the union’s deciion to merge the 5 the State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur (SBBJ), State Bank of Travancore (SBT), State Bank of Patiala (SBP), State Bank of Mysore (SBM) and State Bank of Hyderabad (SBH) with the SBI.
“The strike will involve employees and officers of public sector banks, old generation private banks and foreign banks with a total of more than 80,000 branches,” he said.
He added, “The banks may be filling up the automatic teller machines (ATM) numbering around 200,000 in the country to facilitate cash withdrawals. We wanted to strike when Parliament is in session. Though the strike is on a Friday, the next day is a full working day for the banks. There will be no bunching of holidays.”
Venkatachalam said, “The unions also opposed the decision to privatise IDBI Bank by reducing the government capital to less than 49 per cent, proposals of consolidation for public sector banks but expansion for private sector banks, giving licences to corporate houses to start banks, ineffective steps to recover the bulging bad loans in the banks, and rather showering concessions to the defaulters and others.”
“We demand that willful and deliberate defaulters should be declared as criminal offenders and punished,” he said.
He added, “The total bank loans wilfully defaulted by borrowers was Rs 58,792 crore. The total quantum of bad loans of the government owned banks stood at Rs 539,995 crore as on March 31, 2016.But the government and the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) are not taking tough measures to recover the bad loans. Even the (defaulters’) names are not being published,” he said
