A bevy of bank workers attended a rally near the Parliament house, chanting slogans like ‘Jo hilter ki chal chalega, wo hitler ki maut mrega’ (those who act like Hitler will die like Hitler), `Stop privatization of public sector banks’, `Halt retrograde banking sector reforms`, `Stop foreign direct investments in banking sector`, ‘Recover billions dollars of loans from corporations’ and ‘send defaulters to prison’.
The Indian government recently announced its decision to merge many small banks into bigger capital banks to facilitate responding to default-like situations. However, the bank unions alleged that the crisis is artificially created by the government so that stakes ould be sold to big corporations.
Harvinder Singh, General Secretary of the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation, says, “We are forced to go on strike by this government. The government does not have the capacity to face our demand; that’s why, even after many attempts for negotiation, thousands of workers are on the street despite heavy rain. More than a million workers have joined strike.”
The All-India Bank Employees Association had released a list of willful defaulters, according to which 5,610 accounts owe approximately USD 8.9 billion. As of March 2016, gross non-performing assets or bad loans in Public Sector Banks stood at approximately $82 billion, up from $44 billion in March 2015. Acting on this, the government took some major decisions to bring about reforms in the sector.
D.S. Rawat, secretary general of ASSOCHAM says, “With a view to revamp the functioning of the Public Sector Banks, banking sector reforms is the need of the hour.”
However, agitating employees see this as a move towards greater privatization and believe it would compromise the welfare of workers.
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