From common people to corporates were hit in Chhattisgarh on the second day of the nationwide banking strike on Tuesday as employees of the public sector banks and rural banks were on strike under the umbrella of the United Forum of Bank Unions for seeking a new wage agreement. The ATMs ran dry in majority of Chhattisgarh’s 27 districts and people had a lot of troubles in getting cash.
In Raipur, the officers and employees gathered before Punjab National Bank at Motibagh and shouted slogans and staged demonstration. More than Rs 1,000 crore business has been affected in the State, including Raipur. No transaction was held in the banks during these days. The striking bank employees’ union leaders Sharad Rathore, Vijay Yechuri, BK Chatterjee, SB Bardhan, DK Sarkar, Shakeel Sajid, Suresh Bani, Sushant Mukherjee, Dharmendra Agrawal and others said that there were about 1,500 branches of nationalised and rural banks in the State.
All the officers and employees of these branches were on strike in support of their charter of demands, including new pay scale. They said that the 10th pay-scale had been implemented on November 1, 2012. Even after, it has not been implemented in the banks. They have also demanded to stop new reform in banking sector and termed it as anti-worker and anti-nation action. It should immediately be stopped, they added.
The union leaders demanded immediate appointment on the 50,000 vacant posts of officers and employees in the nationalised and rural banks. However, they said that they would be back to their job on Wednesday. On the contrary, customers had a harrowing time because of the bank employees’ strike. Many of them were seen waiting outside the banks with the hope of opening it, but had to return frustrated.