Employees are awaiting the reopening of the closed banks
More than 20 co-operative banks including big local names such as Madhavpura Mercantile and Visnagar Nagarik Sahakari have gone bust in the last two years. This has resulted in hundreds of employees of these banks to take up varied professions for survival.
From assisting a small share broker in Ahmedabad Stock Exchange, to being an assistant at a photostat shop, to a part-time photographer for a vernacular daily to a green grocery seller at the Unjha wholesale vegetable market, these people have taken up whatever comes their way.
Yet they have the confidence that one day their banks will reopen and they will be called back to duty.
Take the case of Deepak Patel, an accounts clerk at Visnagar Nagarik Sahakari Bank head office in Visnagar of Mehsana district.
The scam-tainted bank with a network of 16 branches across the state was forced to closed down on August 13, 2002, following a liquidity crisis.
Patel, along with 108 other employees, were asked to quit after the state government appointed an administrator.
