Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
IDBI officers and employees carried out a dharna in front of Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on 2 April to protest proposed privatisation of the IDBI Bank under the banner of United Forum of IDBI Officers and Employees. They also conducted a seminar on ‘IDBI Bank privatisation’ at Constitution Club on the same day as a part of an ongoing campaign to protest proposed strategic disinvestment in bank.
Before the dharna they submitted a memorandum to opposition party leaders seeking their intervention in the matter.
The Forum drew MPs’ attention to assurances given by then union finance minister Jaswant Singh in 2003 that Centre would not disinvest stake in bank to a level beyond 51 per cent. But Ministry of Finance is now in process of selling Centre’s 30.48 per cent share and LIC’s 30.24 per cent share respectively.
Forum’s Convenor Devidas Tuljapurkar and Joint Convenors Ratnakar Wankhade and Vithal Koteswara Rao AV said there is no reason why this profit-making entity should be sold to private entities, more so to those of foreign origin.
“Bidders appear to be interested more in various properties bank owns, including 50 acres of land in Hyderabad, than extending financial services,” they said There is reason to believe bidders are bargaining hard to obtain various concessions and relaxations from not just Centre but also regulators.
Bank operated as a Development Financial Institution from 1964 to 2004 and as a universal bank since 2004. It has 2,064 branches and serves two crore depositors including 18.72 lakh Jan Dhan account holders. The Forum leaders pointed out that IDBI Bank caters to social priorities, and makes significant profits along with social profits.