 Hello and let's talk about COVID-19 and the banking sector. Over the past week, we saw Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman announce various components of the Rs 20 lakh road package that the Prime Minister had earlier announced. Now a lot of experts have pointed out that Rs 20 lakh road is actually not going to be spent by the government and in fact the fiscal outlay or the actual spending may be only around 1% of the GDP as opposed to the 10% he declared. However, even the schemes that have been announced are mostly going to be executed by the banks. There's a lot of responsibility on them especially when it comes to the giving out of credit and other such issues. So how are the bank employees coping in such a situation? What are the challenges they face? We talked to Thomas Franco, the former General Secretary of the All India Bank Offices Confederation on this issue. Thank you so much for joining us sir. So what we're seeing is a situation where on the one hand people are not going to really end up with much money in their hands and on the other hand the actual number of bad loans, the SOPs to the private sector are going to increase and all the finance ministers of course also announced measures for massive privatization as well. So in this context what is the situation faced by the bank employees especially those who have been working relentlessly over the past few days they are some of the employees who have not really got a chance to stay at home or work from home or do anything of that sort. So what is the situation right now? One is this privatization announcement is going to be very bad for the economy and for the banks also and especially for the enterprise. See when you have to use some stimulus all along the public sector was used. You buy the production of the industry, you buy from the car, you buy from the micro small enterprises. So huge enterprises like the railways, the oil sector, the telecom sector, all of them were buying. Now, Mr. Nitin Katkari had even announced in the last session of the parliament that 5 lakh crores is what is due from government and public sector undertakes the MSMEs. Now they have said they will release it within 45 days. We have to wait and see whether it is really given. Now once you privatize that condition you cannot put. So these enterprises themselves are going to get into crisis. Now coming to the part of the banks, the banks are working under severe strain. Number one is the acute shortage of manpower. In the last 5-6 years the recruitments have been curtailed in such a way that you are not recruiting even the number of employees who are retiring. They had been wanting to give a push towards this digital for which they have put a curtailment on the recruitment. So the banks are understaffed and because of that banks were concentrating on larger credits which was easy. Now time has come you have to concentrate on the retail credit. For example, you are saying that you give this 45 lakh industries loans. It requires huge manpower and another 50 lakh people you have to give this 10,000 rupees loan for the traders that is the street vendor. In my opinion that should have been simply as a package free to those people. They are the poorest. After all 5,000 crores the government can afford. They should reconsider. Otherwise you are making them to run to the banks for number of days and putting strain on the bank also and the banks they present strain apart from the stock shortages. See when the whole country was under lockdown banks were working full. Transportation was problem. They had to travel in their own vehicles. I have seen girls driving their scooter 60 kilometers 70 kilometers to attend to their office. So there is naturally a mental fatigue. Secondly, the government announced a package of 50 lakh insurances for who the people especially in the health workers that 50 lakhs will be the insurance coverage for them in case of COVID disease. But same is not extended to the bank as already for my own information. I know of four cases of deaths due to COVID among the banks. So there the individual banks are deciding 10 lakhs, 15 lakhs, 20 lakhs maximum. 20 lakhs only has been announced by state bank. So that is also people are very unhappy. Number three for one year they have put a hold on transfer. Now everybody wants to go back to their hometown. Whatever is the difficulty including the migrant labor. But that is also put on hold. So that is another unhappiness. Then the wage reduction. Now it is overdue by 930 days. The stocks also have come to a standstill. So that also people are very unhappy. So the morale has been totally down. So the government has to take action on boosting the morale of the bank otherwise even if they announce whatever schemes banks also find their own way out to fulfill the target. An interesting example I would like to tell you. The government was pushing stand-up India scheme. I have seen a lot of bankers contacting their existing customers, doctors who actually do not require credit. Tell them that okay sir we have a new scheme, tick and lag loan. Buy some equipment. They were also buying happily. They were charging their customers. That is the sick people were being forced to pay more. Similarly Mudra loan when there was a pressure the bankers were pointing it easy to find some known fellow around their house or around the branch fulfill that 25 number target. So actual needy person may not get this loan unless you give a morale boost to the bankers. That is my suggestion. And finally the key in certain in a few concrete points could you talk about what would be the recommendations from your side, from the side of the unions that are thinking about these issues. What are the key recommendations to the government right now? Number one I would suggest that there should be a massive recruitment. That might take time for that. There is a readymade solution. There is a huge number of business correspondents who are sitting in villages with a customer service point. They were not given much of benefit though they were handling this direct benefit transfer of 500 rupees and all. Most of it was handled by them. They were given just one transaction, two rupees more. And their insurance cover is just un-lack. If they die of covid also they get un-lack. So these business correspondents whose number is more than lakhs. They can be as per an award report it is almost 25 lakhs. So they can be absolved as regular employees and these customer service points can be converted into branches, small branches. So that will create a bigger change in the economy as of now. Secondly their life and death issue is naturally the wage issue that has to be looked into it has to be addressed immediately. Then you have to increase the fiscal stimulus. Unless you flow in more money into the economy whatever loans you are giving that will also go back. Now you remember during the budget and little before that in the speech the prime minister also announced that we are going to work towards a five trillion economy and the concrete announcement made by the finance minister was that within five years 103 lakh crores will be spent for infrastructure. Now you divide it. So for this year they should be spending at least 20 lakh crores. Let them spend that. Right. That will create a lot of employment opportunities and infrastructure is what is going to build up the economy. Similarly the existing loans restructuring schemes have to be announced because once you say you cannot classify it as NPA earlier Reserve Bank had permitted the restructuring which was stopped and now it is allowed only for MSMEs. It might be requiring for the housing sector also the other people. Here one thing as people at large we should worry about is that the focus now from the Reserve Bank as well as the government is that okay instead of expanding the bank branches and staff you learn to the non-banking financial. Non-banking financial companies many of them are run by again corporates. Reliance has its own. We know in south is Muthur Malapuram and Bajaj finance. We have seen the Deewan housing what has happened to it. We have seen the ILF. These companies are going to be even more loans which can later on go back. More than that they will be taking loan at 10 or 11 percent from the bank and they will be lending it at 24 percent. They are permitted to do that and some of them in addition to this they charge something called service charge also. So this is going to be very bad for the customers as well as for the banks. So this has to be rethought. Similarly an interest subvention scheme. Just to quote one example of Thailand. Thailand average interest rate is 15 percent but they have announced three different loan schemes. For the poorest of poor 0.1 percent interest. Another section it is 0.35 percent interest and for the MSMEs it is 2 percent to 3 percent interest. So that kind of interest subvention has to be done. Then only this economy can see enterprises have to survive. As I said they are going to have a big constraint in the bank power. We have treated the people in such a bad way. People will be willing to die in their native place and they won't want to go back as migrant laborers once again. Then you have problem of raw material. So at that time the government has to do this incentive of interest concession is myself. Similarly what they have announced is 100 percent credit guarantee. That is not 100 percent. The credit cover which is today available is for certain loans it is only 50 percent. Some loans it is 75 percent and maximum is 85 percent. And there is something called a quick mortality. If the loan goes back soon then the guarantee cover will not apply. So the overall changing of the credit guarantee scheme is required. If you are really saying 100 percent it should be made 100 percent. These kind of efforts if it is taken then it will definitely bring a change in the economy. Thank you so much sir for talking to us. Thank you. In our next segment we discussed the possibility of the resumption of sport activity in India. Now some sport activities have begun in Germany and in the US and the government is also in India declared that stadiums and sporting centers can be open. So is it possible to really resume sport activity or is it going to take some more time? We talked to Leslie Xavier of NewsClick SportsDisc. Thank you Leslie for joining us. So we have seen sporting events resume in certain parts of the world. Germany and the US are examples of course these are being done with a lot of protection then or they are basically zero audience events to a large extent. And there has been a lot of speculation about whether some of this will happen in India as well. In fact the government has said that stadiums and sports centers can reopen. So as we are discussing these issues as the country is discussing these issues what do you think the situation in India is? Are we looking at the possibility of a proper reopening or is it something that is going to probably take some more time? Well to be frank it's too early to to think about reopening sport in the country as that's because we're talking about Germany. I mean if you're looking at mass sport when then you have to take into consideration the action that started in Germany the Bundesliga football. Because in the US it has been UFC there was an invitation golf even that happened which was very close doors and only three players involved but UFC being close combat sport that was a little tricky from their part to open it but then they conducted it like a reality show. For UFC you can quarantine the fighters in facilities that they have training facilities and they call it I mean it's practically a jail but they call it training camps so that way they can control the environment. Bundesliga very keen to see what happens 14 days ends because the first week of action happened but then you know the gestational period of the virus. Because it's not just about 22 players on the pitch it's all over it's about support crew it's about camera crew to stream it. So stadium is not like it's just the players and the coaching staff involved it's probably a 200 odd people around to make it happen. So that's a large crowd so how much do you quarantine how much do you trace their contacts trace their history of so all these things are tricky and all these things are impossible to put in place in a country like India where the situation as far as COVID-19 is concerned is not exactly under control despite the almost two months long lockdown we are breaking records every day as we speak I mean as far as infections are concerned and this without proper and full-fledged testing as such. So opening stadiums and sports centers great it would provide avenues for certain athletes and some of our youngsters to train. Cricket has been very clear that they wouldn't put their cricketers into training I mean just because the stadiums are open because they have to they are keen on putting the logistics in place ensuring that safety and safety is paramount of course. So will that translate to all the other federations taking measures before jumping in it's it remains to be seen because as far as we know our administrators are a little not exactly very objective as far as planning is concerned when implementing certain measures. So in this context I understand that the Indian Olympic Association has also asked for some money from the government considering the with the argument that this is essential for resuming sport activity in the country. So key question is is this money necessary is it enough and will it actually help bring about what the IOA says it will do. But it's it's I mean it's multifaceted question that way but yeah to be I mean fair to the IOA the money is important because sport is one sector that was I mean directly and I mean affected and it's very evidently affected by the pandemic and action has completely shut down there are campers stuck in various facilities I'm talking about the elite Indian athletes of course at the lower level many athletes are struggling to train they are struggling for day to day existence as well because not not all of them have steady jobs and things like that. But IOA asking money and to be exact it's there is a breakup of the money to be exact it's 220 crore which is which should which is out of which 10 crore is for the IOA Indian Olympic Association itself and then one crore each to the 34 state Olympic associations and then there is 31 Olympic federations national sports federations and eight non Olympic national sports federations. So the amount is to be divided among among these two that is the request that Indian Olympic Association president Narendra Bhattra forwarded to the sports ministry. But the point is there are many ironies in this request first thing is the 220 crore that you mentioned in this it's it's it's slightly below the yearly allocation budgetary allocation for national sports federations in the union budget. So in the union budget which which was presented by Nirmala Sitaraman in February the allocation was 245 crore for the for the national sports federation while the chunk of the the total budget is 2826.92 crore the total union sports budget out of which the biggest chunk 890.5 crore was reserved for the pet project of prime minister which is Kailo India. Now I mean it's a it's a different debate whether Kailo India serves the purpose of bringing sport up and Indian sport up into the higher echelons of world sport where we get Olympic medals. That's that's that's the claim but that's a different I mean whether it serves the grassroots as as much as it should or whether pumping in money into the national federations serves the purpose that is a question. But evidently IOA believes that the national federations are the ones that are playing a key role in spending sport at the grassroots. And so when the budget was allocated this very IOA or the national sports federations never raised any issue about the very very small amount that has been allocated for them. And now they are asking for money and they are asking for money again a month after these federations have had donated money to PMKS. So my question now is if they were really cash trapped then why do that show why do I do that PR show. That's that's that's one question that they need to answer. And secondly if if at all the money is allocated will it be used in the right way for the right people for the right development of sport or right opening of sport at all levels not just really level or will it again be in the hands of administrators who would spend it at their whims and fancies probably donate it at some random new fund that will come up down there which which which lacks any clarity as to where the funding would be used. So these are questions that need to be I mean so this this provides that correct picture of how Indian sport I mean Indian sport is administered, Indian sport is run. There is a lot of I mean gimmicks which which is the case for the whole sectors I guess and there are also a clear lack of planning because this is a blanket amount that that you have thrown at the ministry saying that we need so much of money to restart but where is the plan and when and what is the question as well because we are not looking at I mean any any clear time frame where things would be close to normal as far as controlling the infections are concerned right we are we are not open transport logistics assets interstate travel all these things. So yeah it's it's great to seek fund in advance so that plans can be made but then I feel when when it's when it's about sport and when it's when it's in such an unprecedented situation that we are now we need to have a plan in place before seeking fund because fund is at a premium because fund is needed on all sectors and probably I mean being a sports journalist I shouldn't be saying it but probably sport comes way down the picking order as far as priorities concerned. Exactly so what the administrators need to do is basically also have a much larger debate in the country or probably there's no history of it but right now it is essential to sort of have a much larger broader discussion on how to take policy forward. Yeah again so so IOAS to be fair again to IOF unprecedented move again because democracies democratic means is is a little I mean less in Indian sport but IOA a couple of last week to be exact they they sent out a google form to to journalists as well as well as all the national federation sports persons and all to give to give feedback on how we deal with this reopening so form is pretty basic whether we should open whether we shouldn't which sport should be given priority for instance certain sport have an advantage when it comes to reopening certain certain sport doesn't like wrestling and all are very difficult to reopen because it's it's close combat sport but maybe archery is archery can be done certain non combat sport can be done certain sport can be demonstration sport like gymnastics and all can be done online it's happening by the way karate or gymnastics and all this sport the demonstration part of it like other demonstration in karate it's there are many online competitions that are happening where people can record on zoom I mean come online on zoom and demonstrate and the judges will the judges will give you points and so similar moves can be made but so IOA has reached out to people for the plan but whether the assimilation of ideas work in any context it's because because a lot of ideas would come in a lot of interest because different sport have different priorities different interest different way to implement these things so so it it might not exactly be a great idea to assimilate all all all the values maybe the you can you can bring in specific people who are involved in at the deeper level from the lowest to the highest in specific sport make plan the federations make their plan present it to IOA and then a consolidated plan we make giving out a google form again reeks of gimmick that we mentioned that I mentioned earlier in the discussion as far as donation is concerned it's something something as similar as that because it gives you great PR people will say look IOA is asking us for for feedback but but it's it's impractical if you ask me right thank you so much Leslie for talking to us sweet okay thank you so much see regarding this user and that's all we have in this episode let's talk we'll be back tomorrow with the latest news developments of the day until then keep watching news click