About 10 lakh bank employees and officers will go on strike on August 22 to protest against 17 issues including privatisation of public sector lenders, bank mergers, write-off of non-performing loans and hiked services charge post GST (goods and services tax).
The issues also include accountability of banks' top management, implementing recommendations of Parliamentary Committee on recovery of bad loans, pension related improvements and adequate recruitment in all cadres, among others.
The United Forum of Bank Unions which consists of all the 9 bank unions (AIBEA, AIBOC, NCBE, AIBOA, BEFI, INBEF, INBOC, NOBW, NOBO), has called for the strike. One million bank employees and officers in all the Banks will observe a strike on August 22, 2017.
This may impact the cash transactions and cheque clearing financial services at the bank branch levels. However, internet and mobile banking services and ATMs will remain unaffected.
It said that the unions will also hold “massive rallies/morchas” in Delhi along with all the officers and employees on September 15, said C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary of AIBEA (All India Bank Employees’ Association).
Further, the Union could go on another strike in October and November for two days.
A notice for the strike has been served on the Indian Banks Association two days ago, the union said in a statement on Monday.
The Union said it has observed that no concrete steps have been taken to resolve the issue of bad loans. Steps like MOU, PCA, FRDI Bill, NPA Ordnance, Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code, etc. are only aimed to clean the balance sheets at the cost of the banks, which represent the hard earned savings of the people.
Recently, State Bank of India and Bank of Baroda have reduced the rate of interest on savings deposits
The Union feels that the burden of the corporate NPAs are put on the shoulders of the common public and banking clientele in the form of hike in fees, charges, penalties, etc. for every type of normal banking services.
"SBI has said that they will gain Rs 4,400 crore per year by reducing the savings deposit interest but see how much they have sacrificed by write off of bad loans of big corporates," the statement added.
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