Employees of IDBI Bank have bombarded the intranet blog of their MD and CEO with over 5,000 comments to protest the Centre’s move to dilute stake in the bank.

These many were posted in the three days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced the move for stake dilution while presenting Budget 2016-17.

This number is rising, say sources in the bank, which has a total strength of over 16,000 employees.

Means of outreach

The blog post on the intranet (an internal communication portal) is a medium that Kishor Kharat, MD and CEO, uses to communicate with his employees.

His latest post appeared on February 15, after the bank announced its third quarter results.

Employees had started writing their protest notes on the blog within hours after the Finance Minister’s announcement on stake dilution, sources said.

They ranged from being from single-liners to multi-paragraphs. They mostly questioned the rationale of privatisation when the bank is saddled with huge non-performing assets (NPAs) from corporate borrowers.

Action plan

While many an employee chose to write that ‘I strongly oppose privatisation of IDBI Bank,’ others exhorted the MD and CEO to deal firmly with errant borrowers or ‘make recovery laws stronger.’

A new recruit expressed distress saying that those selected through the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) route had preferred the bank for its good working environment and status of a public sector bank.

“Posting on the MD’s blog is just a small beginning,” said Sathyanarayanan, deputy general secretary of the All-India IDBI Employees Association and core committee member of the United Forum of IDBI Bank Employees and Officers Association.

The United Forum is planning other forms of agitation, including dharna , strikes and relay strikes, in consultation with peer unions, he added.

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