AIBOC Denounces ‘Asset Monetisation’ Programme Launched By Union Finance Minister

All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), the apex organisation of supervisory officers in the banking industry, strongly denounces the ‘asset monetisation’ programme launched by the Union Finance Minister on August 23, 2021. AIBOC is of the considered view that this scheme is nothing but a move to initiate wholesale privatisation of public sector assets across all the crucial infrastructure sectors.

The ‘National Monetisation Pipeline’ developed by the NITI Aayog intends to sell off/lease public sector assets worth Rs. 6 lakh crore to private corporates in the next four financial years, from 2021-22 to 2024-25. Assets worth Rs. 88 thousand crore has been targeted for such ‘monetisation’ or privatisation in the current financial year. The shortlisted assets include National Highways, Trains, Railway Stations, Power Generation and Transmission, Oil & Gas pipelines, Telecom infrastructure, Mines and Minerals and others.

AIBOC urges the Union Government to desist from moving along this disastrous path of selling family silver, going against the national interest. The employees, officers and other stakeholders of the public sector enterprises in India, which collectively serve as the backbone of our economy, are totally opposed to privatisation of public assets and its other avatars, namely disinvestment, strategic sale and the latest, ‘asset monetisation’. AIBOC will launch a country wide movement mobilising public opinion and the Government will face outright people’s resistance if such policies are not reversed and rescinded.

Views expressed here are those of Sanjay Das, Secretary West Bengal State & All India Senior Vice President of AIBOC