New Delhi, July 14 (KNN) Public and private sector bank employees have decided to go on a day-long strike on July 29 to oppose the "anti-people" banking reform policies of the Centre.

Talking to KNN, the General Secretary of All India Bank Officer’s Association, S.Nagarajan said that on 29^th July, as many as 10 Lakh bank employees from Public and Private sector banks would go on strike.

“It is related to government’s safety move of bringing forceful reform in the banking system. Our aim is that the priority issue of the banking is the bad loans to be recovered. Because loan lent to various industries are Rs. 72 Lakh crores out of which Rs. 13 Lakh crore is bad loans. So government should concentrate in recovering the bad loans from the defaulters by enacting strictly,” Nagarajan said.

He said that mergers and consolidations are not required as far as Indian banking system is concerned, because the Reserve Bank of India has already told that 52 per cent of the population are not having any banking access, that is why Jan Dhan Yojana as per the finance ministry portal 22 crores of people have brought under the financial inclusion and around Rs. 40000 crores have been collected to the public sector units. So many people are not having the coverage.

“Our approach is that Banking is not for the merger but for the expansion more”, said the Banker.

Pointed out on government move to merge the five banks into State Bank of India (SBI), he said that it is not a correct step, actually associate banks performance is better than the SBI. We are all developed during the period of Kings.

Commenting on the strike, he said “we will begin with the one day strike. If the Government will go ahead with the same approach then the united forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) will meet and take a call.” (KNN/ AR)