Bank employees of all the public, private and foreign sector bank will be going on strike on Friday against the proposed merger of all the associate banks to State Bank of India (SBI) as well as the banking reforms which has been announced by the government recently. The UFBU, an umbrella organisation, held talks with the Indian Banks Association on Tuesday, but their demands were not met, IANS reported.
Advertisement
Echoing this, K Phamaraiselvan, General Secretary of Andhra Bank Employees Union (Tamil Nadu unit) said, “The banking operations have been paralysed nationwide”.
“Over 10,000 bank employees belonging to more than 3,000 nationalised and private bank branches in the seven northeastern states took part in the strike, opposing the proposed amendments to the banking laws”, said United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) spokesman Sushobhan Datta Majumder.
They banks employees are protesting government’s merger move for the sake of consolidation.
According to Venkatachalam, the banks may fill up the automatic teller machines numbering around 200,000 in the country to facilitate cash withdrawals.
“We demand that willful and deliberate defaulters should be declared as criminal offenders and punished”, he said. “There will be no bunching of holidays”, he said. Venkatachalam told IANS that the total bank loans defaulted by borrowers was Rs 58,792 crore, while the total quantum of bad loans of the government owned banks stood at Rs 539,995 crore as on March 31, 2016.
Advertisement
The reproduction of the story/photograph in any form will be liable for legal action.
