IDBI Bank privatization opposed, nationwide strike held

Raipur (Team GDNews): The Finance Minister has announced that IDBI Bank will be privatized. Strongly opposing this, trade unions of banking and insurance sector supported the nationwide strike of IDBI employees here today, and held protests across the country wearing badges demanding cancellation of the decision of 100% FDI in insurance sector, decision to disinvest the government’s share capital of Regional Rural Bank and cancellation of privatization of IDBI.

Addressing this demonstration in Raipur (Chhattisgarh), AIIEA Joint Secretary Dharmaraj Mohapatra said that it is clear that the government intends to sell a large part of the 95% equity holding currently held by the government and LIC. After this proposed disinvestment, the government will be left with only 15.24% and LIC with 18.76%, that is, both together will have only 34% stake.

This means that 66% of the capital of IDBI Bank will go into the hands of a private investor. Therefore, this proposal is directly privatization of the bank.

He said that IDBI was established in 1964 as a development finance institution (DFI) by separating from RBI. In 2005, IDBI was merged with its own subsidiary IDBI Bank and since then it has been functioning like a normal commercial bank. At present, 95% of its capital is held by the government (45.48%) and LIC (49.24%).

Mahapatra said that according to media reports, the bidders who want to buy this bank are foreign investors like Canada and Dubai. So this is not only privatization, but in fact it is also foreignization and it is a matter of shame that the government, which calls itself a patriot, is selling it to foreign hands.

It is worth mentioning that a few years ago, South India-based Lakshmi Vilas Bank was bought by Singapore-based DBS Bank. Prior to that, Fairfax (Canada) played the role of the main investor in CSB Bank (formerly Catholic Syrian Bank).

He said that till now there were certain restrictions on investment and voting rights in the banking sector for FII and FDI, which limited their influence. But now the government is making efforts to liberalize these investments. When the IDBI Act was repealed in December 2003, the then BJP government (then Finance Minister Jaswant Singh) had given an assurance in Parliament that at no time the government would hold less than 51% of the capital in IDBI Bank. But today, by selling its shares, the government’s stake will be reduced to just 15%.

Is this the ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ that the government is talking about?

He said that currently IDBI Bank has public deposits of about ₹3 lakh crore. If this bank is sold to a private investor, then all this savings will be handed over to that private investor. Similarly, the bank has earned an operating profit of ₹30,000 crore in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Private investors will benefit from such huge profits.Mahapatra said that this is an open loot of public money.This demonstration was also addressed by RDIEU General Secretary Surendra Sharma. It was presided over by Rajesh Parate.