Bank unions to begin Twitter campaign against privatisation on Sunday

A day ahead of the start of the Parliament's Monsoon session, the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) has given a call for a campaign on Twitter against privatisation of government banks, a top union official said.

All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) General Secretary C.H.Venkatachalam also said a protest will be held before the Parliament on July 21 and a strike call will be given based on the developments during the session.

The monsoon session of the Parliament begins on July 18 and one of the Bills that may be brought is to enable privatisation of the government banks.

"The Twitter campaign by the bankers will begin on Sunday, the morning of July 17. During these days, campaigning through social media is also important apart from our traditional campaigning mode," Venkatachalam told IANS.

He had told the union members to tweet in English and also in the regional languages to reach a large number of people.

For a long time, it has been said time has come to merge the government banks to have about five big banks.

Recently, in a paper, Poonam Gupta of National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Arvind Panagariya of Columbia University had advocated privatisation of all government banks barring the State Bank of India (SBI).

They had said, to start with two banks with better asset quality and higher returns be privatised and set them as an example for disinvestment by the government in its other banks.

--IANS

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