BANKING transactions amounting to Rs 25,000 crore were affected in entire Chhattisgarh state on the first day of the nationwide two-day called by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) and supported by its ancillary trade union organisations which virtually crippled the banking services and left bank customers at sea on Monday. The two-day strike on single agenda, ‘Privatisation of banks’ brought the bank employees and officers from All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Employee’s Confederation (AIBOC), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI), Indian National Bank Employee’s Congress, Indian Nation Bank Employees Federation (INBEF), Indian National Bank Officers Congress (INBOC), National Organisation of Bank Workers (NOBW) and National Organisation of Bank Officers (NOBO) on a common platform here at Moti Bagh based-branch of Punjab National Bank (PNB) in Raipur. The bankmen also staged demonstration in front of the respective branches of the banks across State. “As per an estimate, banking business worth around Rs 1,000 crore must have been affected in capital Raipur alone due the strike because 5,000 strong workforce of PSU banks employees and officers in Chhattisgarh abstained from duty as part of the protest.

 

The strike by around 25,000 bank officers and employees brought a complete halt to financial transactions in about 2000 branches of Public Sector Banks in the state,” said Shrish Nalgundwar, State General Secretary of Chhattisgarh Bank Employees’ Association. Shrish Nalgundwar said that the nation-wide first day of the strike completely paralyzed the banking services across the country. The private and foreign bank employees with membership of All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) have also joined the strike. However, the private banks like HDFC, Karur Vysya Bank, Federal Bank, South Indian Bank, Karnataka Bank etc along with foreign bank – Bank of Tokyo and Grindlays Bank have overall not joined the striking bank officers and employees. In some states including Chhattisgarh Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) and cooperative sector banks have extended moral support to the strike. But the local bankmen from West Bengal and Tamil Nadu has confirmed of employees of co-operative banks joining the two-day strike, he added. While sharing his views on ‘Privatisation of banks’, Shrish Nalgundwar said that it is irrefutable that Privatisation neither brings efficiency nor safety.

 

Innumerable private banks have failed around the world and it is a myth to believe that only ‘privates’ are efficient. If private enterprises are epitome of efficiency, there should not have been any NPAs from large private corporate entities at all. Public Sector Banks (PSBs) are nation builders and have humungous value of assets with lakhs of crores of funds. Thus, it would be irrational to place the huge network of bank branches, infrastructure and assets of PSB in the hands of private enterprises, business houses or corporates.

 

 

This would restrict easy, next door and safe banking to the populace of the country. As such, anti-common man measure for a developing country like India where banking network needs to be spread further with a sense of social responsibility would be highly lacking if banks are privatised, Nalgundwar added. State General Secretary of All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC) Y Gopal Krishna said that the banking services in member banks of UFBU was completely affected. The bank officers and employees enthusiastically joined the first day of the strike at front of the Moti Bagh-based Punjab National Bank in the city.

 

The second day of the strike is schedules in the same premises and all bank employees and officers are appealed to reach at 10.30am, he added. The bankmen observed a two-minute silence in the memory of Comrade D K Chatterjee, the fatherly figure of trade union in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh who passed away in Raipur on March 13. The bank officers and employees stages massive demonstration included Shrish Nalgundwar, S K Khajanchi, Y Gopal Krishna, Milind Mate, D K Sarkar, Ratnesh Chaudhary, Vijay Bakshi, Shakeel Sajid, Anil Sakhjarkar, Kamal Jain, Ashok Maheshwari, Shakti Singh Thakur, Harsh Bist, B K Nemani, Vijay Sharma, Ramkumar D