Nationwide mass public campaign to oppose bank privatisation

PATNA: Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) today came down heavily on the central government and the bank managements over accumulation of Non-Performing Assets (NPA) to the tune of Rs 2 lakh crore.

Speaking at a state-level summit here, BEFI General Secretary Pradeep Biswas said, "There are no serious efforts to recover the banks' money with the defaulting big corporates. Their assets should be confiscated.

Our data also suggest that Rs 50,000 crore NPA is related to big borrowers who have borrowed over Rs 10 crore and above. Why are the banks silent over this? This is public money," he said. The BEFI, he said, will also launch a campaign across the country next month to create an awareness about the dangers of privatising PSU banks.

"The limit of private shareholding in nationalised banks has been raised to 49 per cent. Now the private shareholders are demanding proportionate voting rights equal to their stake, which was earlier limited to just 1 per cent and then increased to 10 per cent. This is a very dangerous trend and is an indication that they want to establish their control over banks. "

He said the Indian banking industry survived through the global banking crisis when huge multi-national banks failed because they were not in private hands.

The BEFI summit also decided to agitate over pay and pension related issues in the coming months. It will demand 25 per cent salary hike for the employees and improvement in pension and family pension in tandem with the inflation rates.