At a time when the country is just recovering from the shock, the privatisation move and the agitations signal more troubles for the country.Sanjay Das, General Secretary of AIBOC, has said that the move to privatise PSBs would hurt the priority sectors of the economy and also credit flow to self-help groups and to the rural economy. Moreover, the proposed privatisation move is not based on sound economic logic but is purely a political decision to hand over the banks to “crony capitalists”, he said.He added that 70 per cent of the country’s total deposits are with the public sector banks and handing them over to private capital will put the common man’s money deposited with these banks in jeopardy.Such allegations and fears for the economic well being of individuals, MSMEs, and small businesses cannot be easily brushed aside because it is well known that they have always been suffering from many difficulties in accessing finance through even public sector banks on low costs. Privatisation would certainly push up the cost of getting loans, and may well lead to favouritism or bias against them due to the narrow interests of the private banks. The public sector’s social responsibility cannot be found in the private sector.C H Venkatachalam, the general secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), has said that they have served a strike notice to both the IBA and the Union government, and the two-day strike would also be stronger than all earlier agitations. In a developing country like India, where banks deal with huge public savings and they have to play a leading role to ensure broad-based economic development, public sector banking with social orientation is the most appropriate and imperative need, he emphasized.
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