Over 68,000 employees of 86 Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) in India will stage demonstration in front of their respective local head offices on February 28, seeking fulfillment of their four-point charter of demands.
The demands of the employees include formation of a National Rural Bank of India to bring all the RRBs under one umbrella and de-link these rural banks from the control of the sponsoring PSU banks.
Other demands are review and relaxation of the recommendations of the Thorat committee, promotion of in-service staff from all cadres, recruitment of rural youths through expansion of branches and bringing parity in pension benefit to the RRB staff as per the order of the Supreme Court.
“We will start an agitation demanding fulfillment of our demands. In the event of non-fulfillment of demands, we would go for a nation-wide strike in March this year”, said Dillip Kumar Mukherjee, general secretary, All India Regional Rural Bank Employees’ Association (AIRRBEA).
“The Standing Committee of the Parliament on finance had endorsed the view of formation of the National Rural Bank of India in 1993 and also in 2003. Such a bank is needed for the viable functioning of the RRBs”, he added.
At present, the 86 RRBs in the country are sponsored by 28 PSU banks. RRBs have a strong branch network across the country and the branches are located in 588 out of the 622 districts of the country.
The association has also sought an end to migration of rural deposits of RRBs.
Out of the total deposits of the RRBs of about Rs 103,000 crore, around Rs 65,000 crore was kept under the credit portfolio and about Rs 38,000 crore was shifted from the rural areas as investment, claimed Mukherjee.
“Against the migration of Rs 38,000 crore from the rural areas, the RRBs have received only Rs 10,000 crore as re-finance from the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) and another Rs 18,000 crore from the sponsored banks (as on March 31, 2008)”, he said.
The AIRRBEA was also opposed to the policy of consolidation of the RRBs in the state saying it would curtail staff strength.
Since May 2005, the Union Government has taken up a process for consolidation through amalgamation of different RRBs in a particular state sponsored by the same bank. As a result of this process of consolidation, the number of RRBs in the country had reduced from 156 to 86.
“It is strongly apprehended that the ongoing process of consolidation will leave almost all the constraints and difficulties of the RRBs unattended. The RRBs would be bereft of their separate operational and attitudinal ethos and will be made clones to the banks sponsoring them”, Mukherjee said.
