LUDHIANA: On the call given by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), bank workforce and officers are holding massive demonstrations opposing unwarranted merger of three banks. As per decision, UFBU held a massive demonstration in front of Central Bank of India, regional office, adjoining Park Plaza in Ludhiana. The date is yet to be ascertained.
Naresh Gaur, Secretary, Bank Employees Federation, Pawan Thakur, President, Punjab Bank Employees Federation,
Harvinder Singh, Vice-President, Vijaya Bank, Rajesh Verma, Vice-President, Punjab Bank Employees Federation, Gurmeet Singh and Chiranjeev Joshi from All India Bank Officers Association addressed the bank employees.
While addressing the employees, leaders of Federation said that the government has announced its decision to merge three banks viz Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into one single bank. “This is not a surprise altogether as this is part of the government’s agenda to consolidate the banks. But in India what we need is expansion of banks and not consolidation and merger of banks,” an official said.
He further added that there is no evidence that the merger would strengthen the banks or make it more efficient.
Vijaya Bank, Ludhiana region officers and employees staged protest at Vijaya Bank regional office against the decision announced by
finance minister Arun Jaitley on September 17. All employees urged the government to reconsider the decision.
Vijaya Bank is the one of the public sector bank which is in profit. What is needed is tough measures to recover the bad loans. Already, the government’s policy of insolvency and bankruptcy code to resolve NPAs is resulting in huge haircuts for the banks. Scams like Kingfisher,
Nirav Modi, Winsome Diamonds, Videocon are on the surface rocking the banks. Many big names are hitting the headlines about their involvement. Out of 21 PSBs, 19 banks are in loss on account of bad loans and provisions for bad loans. 21 PSBs put together, as on March 31, the total operating profit was Rs 1,55,565 crore but due to provisions for bad loans to around Rs. 270,000 crore, there is a net loss of Rs 85,000 crore. Thus, during the recovery of bad loans and taking criminal action against those involved in the scams is the top priority. As a camouflage, the government is going for the merger of the three banks to divert the attention from alarming issue of bad loans. The total bad loans in the three banks amount to Rs 80,000 crore and merging the three banks will not help to recover the bad loans. On the other hand, the focus is being shifted to merger issue and that is the game plan of the government.
