Regional Rural Bank staff plan strike against privatisation

As many as seven unions in the bank, which formed as a united forum, have called the strike. The unions termed the privatisation as ‘’anti-people.’’   

Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI),  Andhra Pradesh and Telangana states, have extended its full solidarity and support to the striking Grameen Bank Employees in the interest of the nation, BEFI (AP and Telangana), General Secretary P Venkataramaiah said in a statement here on Wednesday. 

RRBs have been successfully meeting the people requirements by extending financial credit to the agricultural sector through its 20,600 branches and 85 per cent of the credit facilities extended by it is towards priority sector including agriculture, he said. RRBs opened nearly 3.75 crore accounts to the needy people under Pradhan Mantri Jandhan Yojana which is unique in the world. 

Venkataramaiah charged that the Union government was taking steps to privatise the RRBs by amending the RRB Act, increasing its capital from Rs 5 crore to Rs 2,000 crore, giving scope for private capital and also appointing private director which is nothing but total privatisation of RRBs, he said. 

“We support the genuine demands of the RRB employees and appeal to the Central government to stop the moves of privatisation immediately and resolve the long pending issues of the employees,” he said and appealed to all the bank employees and general public to support the RRB strike because the unions called for it a last resort after failing in their attempts to solve the issues amicably.