General Insurance Companies will be on strike on Mar. 17; Unions in LIC will strike on Mar. 18

Mysore/Mysuru: Key banking operations in city including services like deposits and withdrawal at branches, cheque transfer and clearance and loan approvals were impacted today as nine unions called for a two-day nationwide strike against the proposed privatisation of public sector banks and “retrograde banking reforms”. 

As many as 10 lakh bank employees across India are participating in the strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions. Banks across the country were shut on Saturday and Sunday – and were not open today and will not open tomorrow due to the strike – leading to a four-day halt of services. However, online transactions were not hit. Anyone could undertake online services anytime.

Branches of private sector lenders like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank were open as they are not participating in the strike. Banking services came to a grinding halt in all public sector banks, putting the customers to a lot of inconvenience and hardship. People were seen rushing to ATMs to withdraw or deposit money. Most of the ATMs witnessed long queues right from the morning. However, bank authorities have replenished the ATMs full to the capacity.

Some of the banks that were closed are, State Bank of India, Indian Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Punjab National Bank, Union Bank of India, UCO Bank, IDBI Bank, Karnataka Bank and Federal Bank. 

The shutdown of banking services has hit traders, businessmen, corporates and all other commercial and business activities across the country. However, almost all private sector banks functioned as usual and most of them witnessed an unusual rush with increased banking activities and transactions.

The strike comes after Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget announcement where she announced the privatisation of two public sector banks (apart from IDBI Bank) as part of the Government’s disinvestment drive to generate Rs. 1.75 lakh crore.

As part of the stir on the first day today, over 300 employees from different public sector banks staged a demonstration in front of State Bank of India(SBI) Zonal office in T.K. Layout. Tomorrow, hundreds of employees and staff of banks will stage a demonstration in front of the Canara Bank regional Office at Nazarbad, as part of the strike.

Apart from bank unions, all the unions in four General Insurance Companies will be on strike on Mar. 17. All the unions in LIC are on strike on Mar. 18, while unions of four insurance companies have called for a strike against the privatisation of public companies.