GURUGRAM: Thousands of employees and officers of the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) on Wednesday held a demonstration outside their corporate office in Gurugram, where the board meeting to approve its merger with Punjab National Bank (PNB) was being held, in a move to register their protest against the big banks merger that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently announced. A joint statement from the All India Oriental Bank Employees Federation (AIOBEF) and All India Oriental Bank Officers Association (AIOBOA) condemned the merger and said that all employees of OBC sported a black badge under the banner of AIOBEF and AIOBOA on Wednesday as a sign of protest. According to the merger announcement, United Bank of India an OBC are to be merged with PNB. KH Pandey, the convener of the Joint Action Committee of OBCs employees and officers union said that August 30 would be remembered as a Black Day in the history of the Indian banking industry. Pandey added that even when the associate banks of State Bank of India were merged with the parent bank, 6,590 branches had to be closed, fearing the same thing would happen to the smaller banks that have been merged. The joint statement said that the current state of the economy required an expansion of bank branches for all-round development and upliftment of the economy, but "this decision of closure of six banks is very unfortunate and unwarranted". Moreover, the employees union pointed out that OBC had been churning out profits for the last four quarters and yet is being merged with PNB, which is "continuously running in loss and could not detect the fraud of Nirav Modi for such a long time". The protesting employees also condemned the fact that while the Central government is merging public sector banks, it is encouraging small private sector banks.

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