Employees of some public sector banks in Ludhiana today took to the streets in protest against the proposed merger of public sector banks by the government.
Addressing demonstrators, Punjab Bank Employees Federation Secretary Naresh Gaur said rather than focusing on reducing bad loans of public sector banks, the government was "in favour" of merging some public sector banks.
"Recently, there has been a number of statements from various authorities about the proposals of the government to merge public sector banks," he said.
"We know P J Nayak Committee has recently recommended merger of banks and government has given its endorsement in this regard," he said.
Gaur pointed out that there have been talks about merging associate banks of SBI, despite their good performance, and alleged that it was because of the stranglehold of SBI that other banks were not able to grow.
"There have also been frequent pronouncements that associate banks of SBI should be closed down and they should be taken over by SBI.
"Rather, because of stranglehold of SBI, its associate banks are not able to grow," he alleged.
Protesters said that the "growing" bad loans of public sector banks needed to be contained in order to bring efficiency in meeting banking needs of people.
"Can anyone believe that mergers will help in recovery of these bad loans?" Gaur questioned, and added, "If effective steps are taken to recover bad loans, all banks will be strong enough and there will be no need for mergers," he said.
