Customers in for ride as banks on strike today

Customers in for ride as banks on strike today
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Highlights

Public sector banks in all 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh will be closed on Tuesday in response to the nation-wide strike call given by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the union of banks associations, protesting against the policies of the Union government.

Vijayawada: Public sector banks in all 13 districts of Andhra Pradesh will be closed on Tuesday in response to the nation-wide strike call given by United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), the union of banks associations, protesting against the policies of the Union government.

Highlights:

  • The strike call was given by United Forum of Bank Unions in protest against the privatisation of banks
  • 10,000 bank employees to participate in strike in AP

The biggest bank unions in the country are vehemently opposing the Union government policies particularly privatisation of government banks and decided to observe one-day strike on August 22.

All India Beak Employees Association (AIBEA), All India Bank Officers Confederation (AIBOC), All India Bank Officers Association (AIBOA), National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE), Bank Employees Federation of India (BEFI) and some other unions have jointly called for one-day strike tomorrow.

More than 10 lakh bank employees and officers are taking part in the strike all over India and more than 10,000 bank employees are joining strike tomorrow in Andhra Pradesh.

Addressing a media conference at the Press Club here on Monday, UFBI leader and AIBEA Krishna district secretary K S Rao demanded that the Central government must stop privatisation of public sector banks and scrap the process of merging banks. He further demanded that the government should declare wilful default of bank loans as criminal offence and take action on the corporates who evaded payment of loans.

K S Rao said the Centre had written off bad loans worth Rs 2.49 lakh crore during the last five years to the corporate groups. He said the banks were collecting deposits from the public but the money is going to the corporate groups in the form of loans.
He alleged that the government is systematically carrying out propaganda against the nationalised banks that the government banks are not functioning properly and they should be privatised.   He condemned the Centre’s campaign against the public sector banks. He pointed out that the Central government had written off loans to the tune of Rs 81,683 crore of big corporate groups in 2016-17 and written off loans worth Rs 57,586 crore in 2015-16.

All India Bank Officers Association leader G Syam Babu said public sector banks are the backbone to Indian economy particularly to the agriculture sector in rural areas of the country. He expressed concern that economy would be affected if government banks are privatised.

He said the banks are opposing the merger of banks and recalled SBH, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Jaipur and another bank was merged with the SBI against the wish of bank employees.

He said the States suffered loss with the merger as the banks helped the respective State governments implement welfare schemes and take up developmental works. Other leaders V R K Mohan of AIBOC, P L Prakash of NCBE, R Ajay Kumar of BEFI and others spoke on the occasion.
Union leaders have released a wall poster to mark the bandh tomorrow.

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