The State Bank of India staff federation leader has called upon the central government to 'learn a lesson from the ICICI Bank incident' before going in for privatisation of public sector banks.

Y Tharak, secretary of the All India State Bank of India staff federation, said that the Indian government's privatisation policy would adversely affect the Indian economy.

"The crisis at the private sector ICICI Bank should work as an eye-opener for the government and policy-makers so that they do not blindly encourage privatisation of banks," Tharak said on Tuesday.

Tharak was speaking at the 15th triennial conference of the Patna circle of SBI staff association.

He said that mere a mere rumour had triggered panic among the ICICI Bank customers. "This indicates that people have no faith in the functioning of private banks," he said.

He said such incidents are unheard of for nationalised banks, as people have faith in the PSU banks.

Tharak charged that the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the western nations are dictating the privatisation policy of the government.

He said: "These forces from outside India will force banks to shed social responsibility which will affect millions of Indians."

Saying that the government is dilly-dallying over the wage revision agreement, he said that more than 300,000 bank employees will participate in the nationwide stir on May 21.

He said it is difficult to understand why no initiative has been taken to fill the 10,000-odd vacancies in SBI, when the government has been harping on generating employment.