Unions, employees oppose merger of 27 public sector banks into six

The consolidation exercise among public sector banks may not be an easy one with unions and employees voicing their concerns.

Barely two days since finance minister Arun Jaitley announced the proposal to have “strong banks rather than numerically large numbers,” unions have t

heartened to resort to strikes if the process is kicked off. According to unions, if the government’s plan was to avoid “large number” of banks, why did it issue licences to companies to set up payments and small finance banks?

The consolidation exercise could bring down the number of public sector banks to about six from the current 27, banking sources had earlier told HT.

Issues such as mergers of weak banks, chalking out a career path for the chairmen of the merged banks, cultural fitment of lenders will also have to be dealt with, analysts said, even though the government seemed confident of the merger exercise.

Addressing a press conference at the conclusion of the second edition of the Gyan Sangam — a two-day offsite for public sector banks and financial institutions — on Saturday, Jaitley had said that consolidation in the banking sector was discussed at the meeting, and bankers themselves have suggested that an expert group should be set up soon to look into the issue. The panel will closely work with the Banks Board Bureau (BBB) to identify the right matches for consolidation. The BBB is set to be put in place by April 1, 2016.

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PSB staff should document reasons for decisions taken

Officials in the state-run banks should take adequate precautions to document reasons for any decision they take, chief vigilance commissioner TM Bhasin said at the Gyan Sangam on Friday.

According to bankers who attended the session, Bhasin listed out the precautions and said the documentation would help them avoid trouble if they are deviating from rules. This piece of advice comes at a time when the Economic Survey has pointed out inefficiency of a large number of vigilance officers employed by the government.

“The vigilance officer system is widely felt to be ineffective and in some cases even counter-productive. It may be time to consider whether the costs of this elaborate, but apparently ineffective, system are worthwhile,” it said.

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How Central Government Staff are able to secure more benefits, as compared to Bank Staff?

Sr.	Central Government Staff	Bank Staff
1	Government Employees have a greater say in implementation of all policies and programmes of the government.  They manage the routine affairs of the government.  They only make the government visible to the common man. They are the people who are running the government show for all practical purposes. Few disgruntled elements among the government employees here and there are sufficient to bring down the popularity of an elected government. So, no government will take the risk of displeasing them.	Bank staff, who are considered as the central pillar of any country's economy, have been reduced to voiceless creatures in our country. All social welfare schemes are dumped on them, by various governments, without giving them any choice or a say. They also have made themselves cheap in the eyes of the society, by undertaking many jobs that are remotely connected to banking.  Their own managements also have to take a major share of the blame for this situation, because they think that in order to face stiff competition in the market and yet survive and flourish, banks must volunteer to do many jobs, even if they are not remunerative and result in wastage of precious human resources and loss of money.
2	Government is a virtual monopoly in many fields.  Moreover, the government is in a commanding position to determine the destiny of many sectors and their survival.	Though banks are also equally powerful and very important to the nation, because of intense, unhealthy and unequal competition, the mid-sized and small banks find it difficult to remain competitive and profit-making.
3	Central government employees/pensioners (48 lakh persons in service and 55 lakh pensioners) constitute a good size of the population.	In comparison, bank staff in service (numbering about 10 lakhs) and another 2.50 lakh pensionersspread over the entire country are numerically very less.
4	If we include those working in state governments and central/state PSUs and also the pensioners who are anticipated to derive benefit out of CPC, they add up to another 2.50 crores.	Same as above.

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