Mumbai: Work in public sector banks will stop on Friday, when over a million bank employees strike work. This effectively means three days of no banking operations as Saturday is national holiday for Republic Day and Sunday is a statutory weekly off.
According to S. Nagarajan, deputy general secretary of All India Bank Officer's Association, nine major banking unions have come together in the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) to call for the strike.
"It will affect the entire banking sector and include over 17,000 officers from public sector banks," Najarajan told IANS Thursday.
Besides public sector banks, private and foreign banks are also expected to remain closed.
The employees are opposing proposed mergers of banks that would lead to shutting down of bank branches.
They are also demanding the lifting of the freeze on new recruitment in the banking sector.
"Merger of branches deprives people of banking avenues. Presently, on an average one bank branch caters to 16,000 people. This figure should be at least half," Nagarajan said.
"Another matter of serious concern is that nearly 50 percent of India's population is outside the banking net. They cannot get banking facilities if branches are merged or closed down," he pointed out.
Nagarajan added that banks need 500,000 new recruits by 2010 to prevent the system from collapsing. "Instead, the government is talking of retiring nearly 300,000 employees," he said.
The UFBU had deferred the strike on two previous occasions last year following assurances from the central government that their demand would be looked into.
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