Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Sunday allayed fears of job losses following the proposed merger of public sector banks,saying not even one employee shall be removed following the amalgamation.
"Absolutely, ill informed. I want to assure every unionin everyone of these banks to please recall what I have said last Friday. When we spoke about amalgamation of banks I have very clearly underlined the fact that there shall not be one employee removed. Not at all", she told reporters here.
She was replying to a question on the bank employees unions opposing the merger plan on the ground it would lead to loss of jobs.
Sitharaman on Friday unveiled a mega plan to merge 10 publicsector banks into four as part of plans to create fewer and strongerglobal-sized lenders as the government looked to boost economic growth from afive-year low.
The four mergers are PNB (Punjab National Bank) willamalgamate with itself smaller peers Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bankof India, to create the nation's second- largest lender; Syndicate Bank willmerge with Canara Bank; Union Bank of India will take over Andhra Bank andCorporation Bank; and Indian Bank will merge with Allahabad Bank.
The move will bring down the number of state-run banks to 12from 19 after the merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with Bank of Barodaeffective April 2019. As of April 20-17, there were 27 state-run banks in thecountry, right before the SBI merged with itself its five associate banks alongwith the Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
Earlier, responding to the government's plan, the All IndiaBank Employees Union has said the amalgamation would lead to closure of banksbesides job losses.
"The proposals which the government has moved areunmindful since it has no logic or rationale. Neither, it is the case that aweak bank is merged with a strong one nor geographically compatible banks arebeing merged," the association said in a statement.
The unions said the government has come out with mergerproposals at a time when the economy is passing through a rough weather-as theannouncements came an hour before the government reported that the economyslowed to the lowest level in 25 quarters in the April-June period clipping ata low 5%.