According to the last revision done in 1992-93, a retired SBI employee, with last drawn basic pay upto Rs 8,500, was entitled to pension of 50 per cent of basic pay subject to a maximum of Rs 4,250.
For those with last basic pay of above Rs 8,500, the pension was set at 40 per cent of basic pay subject to a minimum of Rs 4,250.
The retired employees were though entitled to get dearness allowance.
Since 1992-93, there has been two wage revisions but the retired employees were significantly loosing as there was no revision in pension rates.
The maximum family pension stands at Rs 1,000 with a minimum of Rs 300.
Ashok Datta, general secretary, SBI Staff Association (Bengal Circle) said, "The management has agreed with us and has recommended it to the government, but the government is not taking any initiative in this regards. We are left with no choice but to go for an indefinite country wide strike."
Datta explained that with the financial provision made for pension by the bank management, the corpus will go beyond Rs 10,000 crore.
Last year, provision of Rs 1,000 crore was made.
"The fact that management has agreed and recommended our case proves that bank has the capacity to pay pension to its retired employees as per rules. In no way, the revision will create financial pressure on the government," he explained.
Apart from regular customers, numerous salaried people with their salary accounts with SBI will not get their salary for the month of March.
Representative of the two union today met chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya in order to apprise him about the same.
Meanwhile, the United Forum of Bank Unions has decided that business of SBI will not be done through other bank.
Datta said if action was taken against SBI employees on the day of strike, all banks unions will go for 'flash strike'.