Strike hits banking operations across India

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, August 22

A one day strike by employees of nationalised banks who were opposing the government’s move to consolidate the financial institutions paralysed operations across the country on Tuesday.

According to the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the strike was applicable all over the country with all employees of public sector banks participating in the strike.

The association said many banks did not open for the day and operations such as deposits and withdrawal of funds, cheque clearance, NEFT and RTGS operations were affected by the strike.

The UFBU is an umbrella body of nine unions, including the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC), the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) and the National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW).

Apart from opposing the government’s move to merge several nationalised banks in order to reduce the number of banks in the country, the unions also opposed write-off of non-performing assets (NPA) of corporate loans.

The unions are demanding that the government initiate criminal proceedings against corporate houses which have defaulted on bank loans instead of writing off part of the loans granted to them.

According to UFBU, ten lakh bank employees from 21 public sector banks participated in the strike.

In addition to 18 old generation banks, eight foreign banks and 56 regional rural banks in Mumbai and Maharashtra participated in the strike, All Indian Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) leader Vishwas Utagi said.