Public sector bank employees protest against merger in Ongole

Ongole: The employees of the public sector banks gathered at the Andhra Bank Main branch in Ongole participating in the strike and protested against the proposed merger of banks by the Union government on Tuesday, as per the nationwide bandh call given by the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI).

Speaking at the protest, the Syndicate Bank Employees Union (SBEU) leader U Venugopal said that the common public, small merchants and farmers will lose services of the banks due to the merger of the banks.

Another SBEU leader M Narendra Babu said that the statement of the finance minister that it will be easy to the big banks formed by merging small banks to lend large amounts of money to corporate companies is a laughing stock as many corporate companies are in the list of wilful defaulters for a long time.

The BEFI leader Ch Sobhan Babu said that after the merger of other banks into SBI, 800 branches were closed down and loans about Rs 36000 crores were struck down. He opined that there is only a loss to the banks and the public by mergers but not a single-use as claimed by the government.

The Andhra Bank employees leaders Rajiv and Rajesh Khanna said that there are a lot of issues to concentrate but the government is trying to ruin the banking sector in the name of reformations and implement political agenda.

The UFBU convener V Ramachandra Rao warned that the merger helps the banks to control the functions like monarchy as they did before nationalization. He demanded the government to collect Rs 8 lakh NPAs and stop overcharging the public in the name of service charges.

The bank employees leaders announced that they were ready to participate in the indefinite strike to force the government to change its decision on merger immediately. The other leaders including P Brahmaiah, David King, Rakesh Kiran, TL Prasad, B Venkateswara Rao, Praveen, AITUC leader Chowdary, CITU leader Ch Srinivasa Rao and others also participated in the programme.