Different banking unions will join the striking IDBI employees protesting against an 'eventual' privatisation of the bank, starting with the proposed stake sale to LIC. The IDBI employees are unhappy and worried over the merger of the two entities and have planned a country-wide protest programme on August 1.
Government sources, however, maintain that it would not be a merger but assert that the IDBI will be a subsidiary of the government-owned Life Insurance Corporation.
The banking sector employees are angry that the IDBI was deliberately weakened and its profits diverted to service bad debts of the industrialists and now it was about to be handed over to LIC for an eventual privatisation, allege union office bearers. All India Bank Employees will support the IDBI bank employees through protests and a nation-wide strike.
A decision to fully back the striking IDBI employees was taken at a meeting attended by representatives of All India Bank Employees Association, All India Bank Officers' Association, All India IDBI Employees Association and All India IDBI officers' Association at Chennai on Tuesday.
CH Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA, said that bad loans of IDBI went up to Rs 550 billion. He alleged that the government was not serious in recovering the bad loans and was seemingly intent on handing over IDBI to LIC and open the gateway for privatisation of the bank. Not only the loans were being recovered but also various concessions were still being given and as a result profits of the bank were going towards these bad loans, he alleged.
In the last six years from 2012, the IDBI had written off Rs 242.26 billions of loans of the big borrowers, the union leader alleged.
The government must maintain its commitment to hold 51 per cent of equity in IDBI at all times. But, by allowing LIC to acquire 51 per cent of equity in IDBI, the government will be facilitating the drop of its equity to 43 per cent. Venkatachalam alleged that even the bank's own Articles of Association were sought to be violated in the proposed merger of LIC and IDBI.
