Banking and insurance operations in India will come to a grinding halt on Wednesday with around half a million employees going on strike in protest against the centre's economic and labour policies, said union leaders.
"Across the country around 500,000 bankers - workers and officers - would be participating in the strike. Around 75,000 branches will not work tomorrow (Wednesday)," All India Bank Employees' Association (AIEBA) general secretary C.H.Venkatachalam told IANS.
Employees of public sector/old private sector/cooperative and regional rural banks will be taking part, he added.
However, employees of State Bank of India (SBI) and Indian Overseas Bank are not participating.
Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) national general secretary Pradip Biswas exuded confidence that the strike will be "total" and paralyse all banking operations, saying they had "campaigned hard to make the strike a success".
The banking operations will be hit as cheques will not be sent for clearance. Even though scanned images of cheques are now sent for clearing instead of physical instrument, there will be one day delay in clearance, Venkatachalam said.
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Complaining of increasing attacks on the rights and privileges of workers and concessions being extended to the employers, he said: "There are open attempts to amend labour laws in favour of the employers and to the detriment of the workers. The neo-liberal economic policies are only aggravating the problems of the workers and common masses."
Venkatachalam said in the banking sector, there are continuous attempts to push through the reforms agenda aimed at privatisation of banks, consolidation and merger of banks and others.
"More and more private capital and foreign direct investments are being encouraged. Private sector companies are being given licences to begin banking business," he said.
According to him, Regional Rural Banks are sought to be privatised and a bill has been passed in parliament despite protests from employee unions.
He said refilling of currency notes at automatic teller machines (ATM) by bank employees will also be affected.
"In those ATMs where refilling of currency note operation have been outsourced, the strike will impact them as well as the ATMs may go dry fast," he added.
About 50,000 bank employees, including about 20,000 in Bengaluru are participating in the all-India shut down on Wednesday.
In Bengaluru, BEFI (Karnataka chapter) general secretary Ratnakar Shenoy told IANS that barring employees of a handful of new generation private and foreign bank branches, present only in Bengaluru, all employees of state-run, regional, rural and cooperative banks working in about 4,000 branches across the state will be on strike.
Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) Tripura unit general secretary Nikhil Das said that Wednesday's bank strike would be total in most of the northeastern states.
"The BEFI along with other bank unions has successfully observed last 36 all India bank strikes. Tomorrow's (Wednesday) bank strike would be another successful agitation against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government's anti worker policies," Das told reporters in Agartala.
Wednesday's 24 hour strike, called by 10 central trade unions in support of 12-point charter of demands, is likely to paralyse normal life in the northeastern states, mostly ruled by Congress while Left parties are in power in Tripura and a regional party in Nagaland.
The BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) last week pulled out of the nationwide strike.
Asked whether they were apprehensive of the authorities going all out to break the strike, BEFI's Biswas said: "That we will see tomorrow. But I can tell you that we are prepared for all eventualities."
Employees of government-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and four non-life insurance companies would also be participating in the strike.
"Unions representing class 3 and 4 employees in LIC and the four non-life insurers have given the strike call," All India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA) vice president J.Gurumurthy, told IANS.
General Insurance Employees' All India Association (GIEAIA) joint secretary K. Govindan told IANS that the strike is against "the anti-labour and anti-trade union policies of the central government".
He said the unions in the sector are demanding early conclusion of wage negotiations, finalisation of promotion policy and scrapping of outsourcing etc.
However, associations representing the officers in LIC and the four government-owned non-life insurers are not participating in the strike.