IDBI Bank staff begin two-day nationwide strike against privatisation

Pune: Employees of IDBI Bank are going on a two-day nationwide strike against the process of privatising the bank. The organisation United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees shared this in a press note. According to the organisation, more than 10,000 employees working in over 2,000 branches across the country will take part in the strike.

The main demand of the strike is that the privatisation process be cancelled. The employees' organisation says IDBI Bank was revived with public money, so its future too should be decided keeping public interest in mind. In the organisation's view, the decision to hand control of the bank to a foreign entity is right neither from the standpoint of public accountability nor from that of national interest.

The organisation has also set out the bank's record of past years. It says the Asset Quality Review began during the tenure of Dr Raghuram Rajan, then Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. After that, the real state of the bank's bad loans came to light. The bank then suffered losses between 2016 and 2020. During this period the Central government and the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) infused more than Rs 46,000 crore of capital into the bank. The organisation says that even in that difficult period, employees did not let customers' trust break and tried to keep the bank's services running.

According to figures provided by the organisation, the bank has earned a net profit of Rs 30,106.43 crore over the past six years. The gross NPA (non-performing assets) ratio, which was 31.78 per cent in 2018, has now fallen to 2.30 per cent. The net NPA is 0.16 per cent. The capital adequacy ratio is stated to be 26.38 per cent and the provision coverage ratio 99.31 per cent. The employees argue that when the bank's financial condition has improved, the decision to privatise should not be taken.

The employees' organisation has also said that the bank's future should not be decided only on the yardstick of financial profit, because public investment and the employees' hard work have revived the bank. It demands that the bank retain its public sector character and that the interests of customers and depositors be protected. The second day of the strike is on Tuesday, November 3. The employees remain firm on their demand that the privatisation decision be withdrawn.