Nagpur News.
More than 500 bank officials and workers demanding the quashing the PJ Nayak Committee report, which is advocating the privatisation of banks, staged a protest at Samvidhan Chowk (RBI Square) on Friday.
The outcry organised under the five major bank associations AIBEA, AIBOA, BEFI,INBEF and INBOC was led by EMBE (AIBEA) general secretary BNK SHarma, deputy general secretary Jayvant Gurve, secretary Satyashil Revatkar, association secretary Milind Wasnik, Chendil Iyer, AIBIA’s PC Kohli, BEFI’s VV Esai and INBEF-AINBOC’s Nagesh Dande.
During the day’s proceedings, BNJ Sharma appealed to his fellow protesters to stay atune of the application of the committee recommendations which according to him would prove to be a disastrous steps for all the bank employees.
The RBI had constituted an expert committee under the chairmanship of former chairman of Axis Bank P.J. Nayak to review governance of boards of banks in the country.
The committee submitted its report recently and the RBI asked for comments from the public on it by June 12, 2014.
The unions are troubled as the committee recommended reduction of government holding in public sector banks to less than 50 percent, transferring ownership of public sector banks to a “bank investment company”, merging government banks, keeping out government banks from the ambit of Central Vigilance Commission and the Right to Information Act, transferring government”s holdings to an investment company and repealing the Bank Nationalisation Act.
Other Nayak panel recommendations include repeal of the bringing banks under the Companies Act, besides increasing voting rights of shareholders in public sector banks to 26 per cent from 10 per cent.
In the wake of the same, the five associations had called for a nationwide strike on Friday.
Joint secretary, All-India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) SK Gautam said that the RBI appointed a committee with P J Nayak (former chairman of Axis Bank) as its chairman which has submitted its report which was detrimental to the interests of banks and banks employees.
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He said the committee had recommended that the government”s capital to be reduced to 50%, merger of public sector banks (PSB), keep the PSB out of central vigilance committee, ownership of government banks should be transferred to an investment company, voting rights of shareholders should be increased from 10 % to 26 % and other recommendations.
“It is not wise to hand over the banks to the private sector which is responsible for bad loans. It is very surprising that in the past one decade, when world over many private banks have collapsed, in India attempts are being made to hand over government banks to private hands,” he said.
SV Kevadkar, Vijay Thakur, Ashko Atkare, PG Meshram Arvind Kurhadkar, Dilip Potle, Vandana Majumdar, Ravi Joshi, Anand Sarodaya, Ashok Vele, Ramesh Chaudhari,Pradeep Sathe, Janardan Sakhre, Geeta Dutta, Anjali Mahajan, Vilas Shekokar, J Radhakrishnan, SJ Aiyer, SV Hedau, Bablu Kolte, Kishor Birewar, Darshan Naidu, Narendra Bhujade, Jabesh Kisku, Vijay Jodh, Manohar Chandekar, Suresh Wasnik, Rakesh Bangale, Lalit Upase, Swati Rangari, Shandit Badra, Preeti Sonule, Pooja Nayak, Anuja Bele, Meera KL, Babita Bangale, Smita Bhate, Nirmala Sorte, Ramkrishna Roy and others actively participated in the strike. BNJ Sharma appealed to his fellow protesters to stay atune of the application of the committee recommendations which according to him would prove to be a disastrous steps for all the bank employees.
