The Union government policy of privatising public sector banks is wrong, Minister for Labour V. Sivankutty has said. He was inaugurating the district conference of the Bank Employees Federation of India here on Sunday.
The Minister said the Union government was privatising banks that were fully under government ownership. It had abandoned people-oriented banking, and instead was implementing elitist banking. As part of corporate appeasement, it was writing off huge loans, thus reducing banks’ profits. The drop in profits was being cited by the Centre to privatise public sector banks. Simultaneously, it was trying to attract foreign direct investment into old-generation banks. Catholic Syrian Bank was an example of this, he said.
National strike
A joint platform of Central trade unions has announced a national strike on March 28 and 29 with the slogan ‘protect the people, save the nation.’ Abandoning privatisation of banks is among the 12 slogans on the basis of which the national strike is being held, the Minister said, calling for efforts to make the national strike a success.
