 "Nationwide bank strike success, claims AIBEA")
The strike declared by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) consisting of nine trade unions of bank employees and officers, has seen around 10 lakh employees and workers protesting, said All India Bank Employees' Association (AIBEA), one of the member unions. Across the country, around Rs 20,000 crore worth of instruments including cheques would remain without clearance during the day, said senior leader of the Association.
"The strike has become a success with around 10 lakh bank employees and officers participating in it today. Around Rs 20,000 crore worth of 26 lakh instruments would have been stagnated in the banks without clearance," said C H Venkatachalam, general secretary, AIBEA.
The basic banking services were affected across the country and it is a failure on government's part to resolve the issues, which has led to the strike despite the unions gave notice of strike much earlier, he alleged.
The AIBEA and All India Bank Officers' Association (AIBOA) will be holding a meeting on August 4 and 5 in Hyderabad to chalk out further campaign and protest programmes on the demands.
More From This Section
The unions demanded the central government to stop retrograde reforms in the banking sector, not to privatise banks or increase private capital in public sector banks, neither to encourage FDI in banking sector nor give license to corporates to start banks. They also demanded not to give licences to private hands to open small banks and payments banks, or privatise regional rural banks, and neither consolidate or merge banks nor to weaken priority sector loans in banks.
"Government wants to consolidate and merge 27 public sector banks to make them into some five or six big banks for the sake of global competition. There is no need for global completion by our banks. We need efficient banks and not necessarily big banks. Big banks do not automatically mean strong banks," said an announcement by AIBEA.
Bad loans to the tune of Rs 13 lakh crore, majority of which are due from corporates and business enterprises, has to be recovered, it added.
"According to Finance Minister there are 8,167 willful defaulters, who owe banks a cumulative amount of Rs 76,685 crore. We should take criminal action against these deliberate defaulters. But Government is showing velvet treatment to them by writing off their loans. It is open loot of public savings. This should be immediately stopped," said the association.