On Wednesday, staff of all nationalised banks, including officers, went on a one-day strike to protest against the Government's alleged apathy towards meeting their demands for wage revision and withdrawal of proposed reforms in the banking sector in favour of foreign banks.
"Around 10 lakh bank employees and officers working in public sector banks, including State Bank of India (SBI) and some private sector banks, went on strike all over the nation," said Deputy General Secretary of SBI, Dehradun, Suresh Upadhyay.
He also said that more than 1,000 male and female bank employees participated in the protest in Dehradun in front of the SBI Rajpur Road branch.A protest rally was also taken out in the city which started from Rajpur Road and ended near Gandhi Park. More than 12,000 bank employees all over the State participated in the protest.
Their demands include 35 per cent hike in salary and withdrawal of the proposals of banking reforms in favour of foreign banks.
"In 2007, we got 17.5 per cent hike in salaries and the settlement expired in October 2012; hence the revised settlement was due from November 2012 and now Government is only giving us 5 per cent hike," he added. He said, the national unit of the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) decided to go on strike after not getting favourable response from the Government.
Upadhyay said: "The number of private banks is increasing daily and Government should stop giving licence to them as they don't implement Government policies. Only nationalised banks implement Government policies and are also more beneficial for country as foreign banks are interested mainly in making profit in India."