The All India Bank Employees Association has criticised the PJ Nayak Committee recommendation for reducing government equity in public sector banks to below 51 per cent.
In a statement, the association said the recommendation, if implemented, would amount to the privatisation of public-sector banks. It said many private banks had collapsed because of mismanagement and fraud.
“Banking services are today accessible to the common people only because the banks are in the public sector,” the statement noted. “Agriculture, rural development, employment generation, women empowerment, poverty alleviation and infrastructure development are given loans only because the banks remain in the public sector.”
The association condemned the recommendation as retrograde and has warned that the banking sector unions would oppose it. “The report as It is a sad commentary on the wisdom of this committee that it has recommended banks to be handed over to private hands at a time when the bulk of the bad loans are attributable to the very same private sector. More than four lakh crores of rupees are locked in bad loans are due from these big private corporate and business enterprises.”