The simmering anger of bank employees against their alleged exploitation following demonetisation move boiled over on Wednesday with a protest meet being held at Astley Hall here. The bank employees under the banner of All India Bank Employees Association and All India Bank Officers Association organised nation-wide protest meetings at all state capitals on the day. These workers demanded resignation of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Urjit Patel.
In Dehradun protesting bank workers assembled outside the Punjab National Bank branch at Astley Hall after working hours, raising slogans against the RBI.
The Uttaranchal Bank Employees Union general secretary, Jagmohan Mehendirata averred that the RBI claim that it has provided sufficient cash in banks is false. He said that the bank employees demand that the RBI should release a daily update of the status of cash transferred by it to different banks. Mehendirata alleged that the RBI is meting out a step motherly treatment to the nationalised banks and providing more cash to the private banks. He further alleged that in Tamil Nadu 872 branches of the Axis, ICICI and HDFC banks have so far received Rs 6100 crores while 9000 nationalised banks of the state received Rs 7200 crores which proves that the private banks are receiving ten times more cash than nationalised banks. He said that the government and RBI should accept the genuine demands of the bank employees failing which the unions would be forced to take more stringent steps.
The agitating bank employees are blaming RBI for mismanagement which is showing them in poor light, they opine. “The RBI is to blame for whole misstatement. The RBI has all the records of the money transferred by it to the chests of banks and it should reveal these. The bank employees are being portrayed as villains before the public and they are facing public ire for no fault of theirs,’’ said a bank employee.
The bank unions claimed that 99 percent of the corrupt practices are being done by the private banks workers but the whole fraternity of bank employees is getting defamed by their actions.