Bank unions have sought to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi after the morcha it plans to hold on September 15, to put forth their concerns over the consolidation and merger of public sector banks.
The nationwide strike called upon by nine bank unions on Tuesday saw major participation of nearly 10 lakh employees and officers of public sector banks across 10,300 branches in the country.
All cheque clearing operations, financial and cash transactions and other routine daily banking services were stopped due to the strike. Though ATMs were operational, some ran out of cash by noon as there were no replenishments.
Government treasury, foreign exchange, remittances, import and export bill transactions and sanction of loans among other services were also impacted.
CH Venkatachalam, General Secretary, AIBEA (All India Banks’ Employees Association) said, “We were happy to see more young officers also participate in the protest and that helped us put forth the message. The present political culture has ignored the bank unions’ views but there will be a long term confrontation on the same. We plan to meet the Prime Minister Modi post the September 15 morcha to put forth our points.”
The unions plan to hold a rally in New Delhi with the help of around one lakh employees and officers.
"Normally in the three clearing grids functioning from South, West and North - Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi - on an average about 40 lakh cheques and instruments worth about Rs 22,000 crore are transacted per day. This has been affected in a big way as a result of the employees' stir," Venkatachalam said.
New private sector banks including ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank skipped participation in the strike while old private sector lenders such as Federal bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, South Indian bank and Tamilnad Mercantile Bank among others, participated in the strike.
Among the 17-point charter of unions’ demands, the major ones include government's denial of adequate capital to public sector banks, thus creating conditions for privatization, merger and consolidation of banks and problem of resolution of large bad loans.
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