AGARTALA, Aug 31: Tripura branch of All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), the apex body of the bank officers’ trade union movement in the country opposed the merger of Public Sector Banks announced by Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs yesterday.
They argued such bank merger announcements would undermine the autonomy of the bank boards and makes a mockery of the provisions of the Banking Companies Acquisition and Transfer of Undertaking Act, 1970 and 1980.
The PSU Bank boards have no representatives of either Officer or Workmen director despite explicit legal provision and direction of the Delhi High Court. Such illegal decisions against the interests of the PSU Banks and its officers and employees are not acceptable.
“The justification for bank mergers given by the Finance Minister is misplaced. SBI continues to face financial stress in the post-merger scenario. The BoB-Dena Bank-Vijaya Bank merger has not yielded any significant improvements either. The decision of merger will act as a major impediment to the dream of the Govt. of moving towards a 5 trillion US dollar economy instead of being a catalytic process as claimed by Finance Minister”, said the AIBOC statement.
The creation of four new banks by merging 10 PSBs; Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank; Union Bank, Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank; Punjab National Bank (PNB), Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) and United Bank of India and Indian Bank with Allahabad Bank; will only enable them to create larger balance sheets to conceal the NPAs and absorb more losses and haircuts.
This is a clear diversion of attention from the core issue of NPA recovery and the mergers cannot resolve or clean up the balance sheets, the statement added.
(UNI)
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