Bank Unions demand Parliamentary probe into Mallya's episode

Plan to go on dharna as well as a strike in May

Bank Unions have sought for Parliamentary probe into the Vijay Mallya episode. The Bank Union has called for a one day strike on May 25, and one of the demands is probe against Mallya.

C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) said that the demands include, make Banking a fundamental right, strengthen public sector banks to strengthen national economy, do not privatise public sector banks, give adequate capital to PSBs, take stringent measures to recover bad loans in Banks, declare willful default of bank loan as criminal offence, publish the list of bank loan defaulters, parliamentary probe into Mallya episode and punish those responsible, fix accountability for bad loans and punish the guilty and do not privatise IDBI Bank.

He added, on the one hand, in the name of clean-up of balance sheet, as per RBI guidelines, more and more provisions are being made and many Banks have already shown huge losses. Further provisions are going to be made and further losses will be made to show the PSBs in poor light.

While the capital of the Banks have become inadequate, the Government refuses to fully capitalise the Banks. It may be noted, in the current year budget Rs 25,000 crore was provided for capitalising Public Sector Bank (PSBs).

"This is obviously intended to force the Banks to resort to more and more capital from the private sector. The hidden agenda is privatisation of the Banks," alleged Venkatachalam.

He added, the topmost priority issue today is increase in bad loans in the Banks which is threatening to overtake the entire banking sector.

The Gross NPAs in the PSBs has gone upto Rs 3,61,000 crore as on December 31, 2015 and there are 7686 willful defaulters who owe Rs 66,190 crore to the Banks.

Provisions made for bad loans in PSBs for 2013-14 was Rs 92,055 crore and this has gone upto Rs 1,12,998 crore for 2014-15.

"Kingfisher Mallya is only a tip of the iceberg and there are many others sharks that are that cheating the banks and eating the public money. But no action is being taken. In the Budget, Government has announced privatisation of IDBI Bank. Thus the attacks are increasing every day," alleged Venkatachalam.

In this background, AIBEA's Office have met recently and decided to conduct campaigns. The programme will start from April 15, followed by Dharna before the Parliament and on May 11 morcha, rallies and dharnas are planned across the country. On May 25, the Union has called for nation wide strike.