Trouble for Bank of Baroda-Dena Bank-Vijaya Bank merger: Unions announce strike; Check date, details

Bank employee unions have called for a nation-wide strike on December 26 against the government's decision to merge Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. If the nation-wide strike happens, it will impact all banking services including deposit and withdrawal from branches. As many as nine employee unions have come under the umbrella of United Forum of Bank Unions to participate in the strike.

The unions have called for strike against the proposed of merger of three banks - Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank. The Centre had proposed the merger in September this year.  C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), informed that the government is going ahead with the process of the merger while the employees have been protesting against it.

All unions under UFBU will participate in this strike call, said Ashwani Rana, vice president of the National Organization of Bank Workers.

Even the boards of these banks have approved the Centre's merger proposal. The bank formed after the merger will be the third largest bank in India after State Bank of India and HDFC Bank. The total business of the three banks was around Rs 14.28 lakh collectively at the end of June 2018.

The finance ministry had proposed to merge these banks seeing their worsening finances and rising NPAs.

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As at June-end, the total business size of the three entities together was Rs 14.82 lakh crore. Of the three banks, Dena Bank is the weakest, with non-performing asset (NPA) ratio of 11.04 per cent and business of Rs 1.72 lakh crore, as compared to 5.4 per cent NPA and Rs 10.2 lakh crore business of Bank of Baroda and 4.10 per cent NPA and Rs 2 lakh crore worth business of Vijaya Bank.