The All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) has announced that its members will boycott work on July 29, to protest against the government’s attitude towards the public sector banks, and its attempts to weaken them.

The decision was made following the meeting Wednesday meeting in Hyderabad of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), attended by all its nine member unions, including the AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, and the AIBOA.

According to C.H. Venkatachalam, general secretary of the AIBEA, the central government was trying to weaken the public sector banks by reducing capital infusion, consolidating and privatizing the banks, by mergers, and by issuing new bank licenses to private parties.

Admitting that bad loans and NPAs were on rise, he said that the banking sector currently has bad loans amounting to Rs.10 lakh crores, and bulk of it were given to corporate companies. He said that the bad loans were being written off against the profits of the banks, thus forcing them to report losses.

Demanding criminal action against loan defaulters, Venkatachalam revealed that there are more than 7000 wilful loan defaulters owing more than Rs.60,000 crores to public sector banks.