New Delhi, March 6: A day after cabinet approved the merger of 10 public sector banks, two major unions of the banking sector — All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA) and All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA) —announced to go a nation-wide bank strike on March 27. The bank unions are going on a strike to oppose the megabank mergers. PM Narendra Modi Cabinet Gives Nod to Bank Mergers of 10 PSBs Into 4 Entities, New Move to be Effective From April 1, 2020.

"Banks themselves face problems due to huge pile of bad loans. While the public sector banks made a total gross profit of Rs 150,000 crore for the year ended March 31, 2019, because of total provisions towards bad loans, etc. amounting to Rs 216,000 crore, the banks ended in a net loss of Rs 66,000 crore," reported Live Mint quoting H Venkatachalam, General Secretary at AIBEA as saying.

Apart from opposing the merge, the unions are also demanding that the government should stop the privatisation of IDBI Bank and rollback banking reforms. According to reports, the Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) has also announced to protest against the merger. The BEFI will hold a fortnight-long agitation programme against the government move. PNB-OBC-United Bank to Become One Entity; Canara-Syndicate, Indian Bank-Allahabad Bank, UBI-Andhra-Corporation Bank to Merge.

On Wednesday, the Narendra Modi government approved the merger of 10 public sector banks into four with effect from the new financial year beginning on April 1. This includes an amalgamation of Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India into Punjab National Bank, making it the second-largest banking entity. Syndicate Bank will merge into Canara Bank, while Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank will merge into Union Bank of India. As per the government's decision, Allahabad Bank will be consolidated into Indian Bank. Each amalgamated entity will have a business of over Rs eight lakh crore.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Mar 06, 2020 12:18 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).