All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) has sought the immediate intervention of the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) to incorporate a special provision to debar and disqualify top bank loan defaulters from contesting the Lok Sabha elections.
Talking to The Hindu , AIBEA general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam said the top 50 defaulters have to pay more than Rs.40,000 crore to the banking sector. The list includes a sitting Member of Parliament, a Central Minister and two Padma Sri awardees, who owe collectively over Rs.7,800 crore.
Similar requests have been made by the representatives of bank unions to the CEC, to safeguard their banks that have been incurring huge losses in the recent years due to increase in wilful defaults. Moreover, the performance of the banks suffered as huge sums of profits was set aside to meet the bad debts.
“We have always been demanding to declare wilful default as criminal offence. Today, we have written to the CEC to incorporate a specific provision to debar and disqualify candidates from contesting the ensuing Lok Sabha polls, if they or the companies in which they are connected are defaulters of loans to Banks. We have also sent the entire list of defaulters as there are chances of these defaulters contesting the elections,” he said.
In his letter, Mr. Venkatachalam said that the bad loans have increased by four-fold from Rs.39,000 crore in March 2008 to Rs.1,64,600 crore in March 2013. In the last five years, the banks have set aside profits ranging from Rs.11,000 crore to Rs.1,40,000 crore.
He also mentioned the names of Kingfisher Airlines and Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals among others.
