Aurangabad, Sept 15:
The Maharashtra State Bank Employees Federation (MSBEF) has appealed to the government to review its policy on bank privatisation and also lower the burden on the PSBs of implementing various government schemes. The federation issued a press release on the backdrop of the national conference of the public sector banks (PSBs) to be held in the city on Thursday.
The statement states that the PSBs are sharing more than 90 per cent of the government business, but with the announcement of privatisation, PSBs are operating in uncertainties on which government should come out with clarity. Federation president Nandkumar Chavan said, implementation of schemes like Jan Dhan and others is resulting in huge rush at the banks despite digital banking and alternative delivery channels. But bank managements are not carrying out adequate recruitment and thus customer service is getting affected. The union minister of state for finance Dr Bhagwat Karad should raise the issue in the meeting. General secretary Devidas Tuljapurkar said that since last 3 to 4 years PSBs were struggling hard for profit mainly because they were required to provide for huge non-performing assets in which major share was of corporate and thus banks went into losses and government was required to provide for the capital from budget. But now almost all the banks have come out of that phase and despite social banking, PSBs will book significant accounting profits and very soon will be in a position to pay back the government. In this backdrop, MSBEF appeals to the government to review its policy on bank privatisation in the interest of farmers, unemployed youths and small and medium industries. Banks are handling savings of the society and thus they should be committed to social banking which is possible only if the government continues with its ownership.
Need to educate customers on digital literacy
The government is pursuing digital banking to reach digital India. However, due to lack of digital literacy, innocent people are falling prey to cyber frauds. Hence the government and bankers together should take initiative to implement digital literacy and need to educate customers on usage of technology.