Thiruvananthapuram, In response to the call given by All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), as many as six lakh employees working in Public Sector Banks, Private Banks, Foreign Banks, Cooperative Banks and Regional Rural Banks will join the one-day general strike called by Central Trade Unions on Thursday.AIBEA Joint Secretary K S Krishna, in a release here on Wednesday said it has demanded for reversal of the policy of bank privatisation, enhancing interest rates for bank deposits, urgent recovery of corporate bad debts, scrapping outsourcing of regular banking jobs etc. The strike is to support the seven-point demands of the 10 Central Trade Unions and many independent sectoral trade federations for direct income support to the workers, free rations, rising guaranteed employment days, scrapping retrograde farmers and labour laws etc, he added.Despite the fact that it is public sector banks, regional rural banks and cooperative banks that are acting as backbones in the financial sector by virtue of their network of branches and proactive dispensation of credit and other services to the people namely massive opening of accounts as part of Jan Dhan Yojana, extension of insurance through Suraksha Yojana and Bheema Yojana, as directed by the Union Government and RBI.The Central Government as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan package is proceeding with privatisation, sale of majority government-share and merger of banks thus bringing down the number of banks, he said.”It is disturbing that the policy-makers have not learnt any lessons from the failures of Yes Bank, IL&FS, Dewan Housing Finance Limited in the recent times, all privately owned entities and due to poor governance and bad management,” Mr Krishna said.He said the government is not listening to the woes of the workers. Instead, it is extending loan and liquidity support and interest concessions to companies in the name of fiscal stimulus, the AIBEA Joint Secretary alleged.”The Government speaks about fiscal constraints for monetary concessions to the poor. But crores of rupees of money taken as loans by the big businesses are being written off. Tax dues of companies are being forgone. The poor and the vulnerable sections of the society are being let down,” he alleged.