Bank employees and officers will take out a rally to Parliament on September 15 against what they describe as anti-people banking reform measures.
Thousands of bank employees and officers are expected to participate in the programme, said CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, All-India Bank Employees Association.
‘Strengthen PSBs’“We propose to meet the Prime Minister and submit a memorandum to him on these issues,” Venkatachalam said. “Our demand is save banks, save economy, save nation, and save people.”
There is a need to strengthen public sector banks and open more and more branches to serve the people, he said. But the Centre is trying to privatise the banks, he said.
To ensure safety of people’s money in banks, public sector banks have to be strengthened and not privatised.
These banks have a total deposit of ₹110 lakh crore. Privatisation will result in handing over the huge, precious public savings to private hands and is hence not advisable, he said.
Public sector banks alone cater to the credit needs of priority sectors like agriculture, employment generation, poverty alleviation, women empowerment, rural development, education and health, infrastructure and exports.
Loans are given at concessional rate of interest. If banks are privatised, their motive will be higher profits and interest rates will be higher. The priority sector will be neglected and will have an adverse impact on the economy.
The unions also opposed merger of banks.
“There are thousands of villages without access to banking facility. So we need expansion of banks and not consolidation,” Venkatachalam said.
More branches are to be opened in these areas. Consolidation will be needed only when there is saturation to expand. In India there is enough need, scope and space to expand. The only real issue in the banks, as the unions perceive it, is the alarming increase in bad loans. Banks are suffering from huge bad loans of nearly ₹15 lakh crore.
A bulk of these are due from private companies, business houses and corporates. What is required today is their recovery and not handing over of banks to them.
The unions demanded that the Reserve Bank publish the list of loan defaulters of more than ₹10 crore and take stringent measures to recover bad loans. Recovery laws should be amended to expedite the recovery process and wilful default should be declared as criminal offence and criminal action taken.
Venkatachalam also referred to unfair service charges and penalty charges imposed by State Bank of India and others.
While reducing the rate of interest on savings deposits, banks have increased service charges and penal services for various normal banking services.