Bankmen stage protest infront of State Bank of Patiala Zonal Office

Ludhiana, August 30, 2013: A daylong dharna was held infront of State Bank of Patiala, Zonal Office, Miller Ganj Ludhiana, on Friday, in which more than 100 bankmen under the banner of All India State Bank of Patiala Employees Federation (AISBOPEF) participated opposing government and SBI management policy of Merger of Associate Banks in SBI particularly at a time, when the banking system is facing crisis due to very same set of policies in the USA, UK, Europe etc. Instead of learning lessons, the government wants to blindly follow suit. Hence it has become an important duty of the trade unions to fight against these measures, the protesters observer.

Naresh Gaur, Assistant General Secretary, All India State Bank of Patiala Employees Federation  and Workman Director on the Board of State Bank of Patiala, Sudesh Kumar, Chairman, Punjab Bank Employees Federation,  Ashok Malhan, Vice President, Parveen Moudgil, Chairperson, A.K.Chhibber, Vice President, Parkash Singh, Organising Secretary and Jagan Nath, Regional Secretary, State Bank of Patiala Employees Union and Ashwani Singla, President, State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur Employees' Union addressed the bank employees.  

Naresh Gaur while addressing the bank employees said that the agenda of the Government on banking sector reforms is well-known to the bank employees of our country.  Various struggles have also been undertaken by us in the past to oppose their moves.  Banking laws are being liberalised and regulations are being relaxed and loosened. Hence it has become an important duty of the trade unions to fight against these measures.

     To add fuel to fire, Gaur said, the government has been repeatedly talking of consolidation and merger of Banks.  Even some groupings have been done to club the nationalised banks into 7 groups of banks.  These cannot be taken as innocent moves and measures. We can easily discern and detect their idea.  In the recent months, they are also talking of merging the Associate Banks with SBI.   Why they need it, asked Gaur, adding there is no answer.  Who will be benefitted, he further asked.  There is no one to answer, he said, adding yet the government wants to go ahead.  In the recent weeks, the SBI top management is repeatedly talking of merger of its Associate Banks with itself.  The attempt is to close down these Associate Banks and take them over by SBI. 

     Further, Gaur said SBI is not the promoter of the Associate Banks.  SBI is not the owner of these Banks, either.  They are just investors and share-holders in the Associate Banks. These Associate Banks have their background and long history.  Their fate cannot be at the whims of the SBI.  Further all these Associate Banks are doing well and performing.  What is the need to close them down? There are private Banks which are much behind the performance and business of the Associate Banks.  Yet they continue and enjoy the blessings of the government. The impressive performance of Associate Banks is despite the policies of the SBI to dwarf them.  If they had been free of SBI, they would have grown much bigger. Even today, they are very popular Banks in the main States where they operate.  Then who is behind this idea of closing down the Associate Banks.  It is not merger.  It is murder.  We not only oppose closing down the Associate Banks and merging them with SBI, we also demand that these Banks should be de-linked from SBI.  They have strong potential to grow and will certainly perform better if freed from the clutches of SBI.  But in their hurry to pursue their agenda, the top management of SBI wants to move unilaterally.  Logic and reasoning has become the casualty.  But we need to fight back. Even in service conditions they want to be unilateral.  They want to violate our agreement with the view to destabilize our service conditions.

Gaur said the government also wants to reverse the clock.  They want to denigrate the public sector Banks.  They want to further encourage private sector.  They want to once again allow big business to enter banking sector.  Already 26 applicants including from Tata, Birla, Ambani, L&T, Bajaj, Ruias, etc. have queued before the RBI. Whereas growing huge NPAs is only from big corporate advances only. This move is to under play with the people's money.          

He revealed that it has been decided to give the call for agitation including strike on September 25. “We urge upon the government of desist from the move of merger of Associate Banks in SBI and further de-link from SBI in order to allow them to grow and serve the nation”, he asserted.    

Nareksar Rai, Gopal Batish, Gurcharan Mahi, Parveen from Moga, Surinder Mohan from Banga and Ravi from Barnala, Central Committee Members, State Bank of Patiala Employees Union were also present on this occasion.