The All-India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) has condemned the demand of apex trade body Associated Chambers of Commerce of India (Assocham) that public sector banks (PSBs) be privatised in view of the recent fraud in Punjab National Bank (PNB).
CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary of AIBEA, said in a statement that if private banks are really efficient why were many banks closed down and merged with others in the past. Most of the private banks, he said, were merged with PSBs.
PSBs, he said, are made to swallow the ‘poison of failure’ of many private banks. It is funny that Assocham is asking PSBs to be privatised now, he said. On the huge increase in bad loans in banks, he said, the private companies, industrialists and corporate houses are the delinquents and defaulters, and wondered if PSBs be privatised and handed over to these people.
Assocham should ask the private sector corporate defaulters to repay the bank loans to the PSBs and condemn Nirav Modi for the fraud he has committed on PNB, Venkatachalam said.