New Delhi: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announcement in the Budget 2021 has raised concerns among public sector bank employees and unions. In her speech, she said that the government is looking to divest non-strategic, state-run firms, considering that they are outside the strategic ambit.

A meeting of UFBU was held in Hyderabad in which all the nine bank unions decided to oppose the proposal of privatization of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) by the Centre on Tuesday. They even called a two-day nation-wide strike from March 15. In the meeting, AIBEA General Secretary Ch Venkatachalam also participated where announcements made in the Union Budget 2021 were discussed regarding reform measures. The reform measures included the Privatization of IDBI Bank and two Public Sector Banks, setting up of Bad Bank, disinvestment in LIC, etc. In her budget speech, Sitharaman said "the government plans to privatize two state-run banks, besides IDBI Bank, and a general insurance company in FY22." 

According to the agency report, the AIBEA General Secretary said this decision of the central government to privatize PSBs is totally unfortunate and unwarranted. "The need of the hour is to strengthen public sector Banks, all these measures are retrograde and hence need to be opposed," he added. AIBOC general secretary Soumya Datta also suggested a two-day strike on March 15 and March 16.

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