Bank Strike: Clearance of 38 lakh cheques worth Rs 37,000 cr affected

Chennai: The ongoing two-day nationwide bank strike against the privatisation of government banks has affected the clearing of cheques worth about Rs 37,000 crore.

According to a statement by C.H. Venkatachalam, General Secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) about 38 lakh cheques worth about Rs 37,000 crore were held up.

Venkatachalam said that are three cheque clearing centres in India -- Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai. In two days- Thursday and Friday -giving a grid wise break up, he said that about 10 lakh cheques worth about Rs 10,600 crore in Chennai, about 18 lakh cheques worth about Rs 15,400 crore in Mumbai and some 11 lakh cheques worth Rs 11,000 crore in Delhi were not cleared.

He said, in addition to public sector bank staff, employees and officers of old generation private banks like Federal Bank, Karnataka Bank, Karur Vysya Bank, CSB Bank, South Indian Bank, Dhanlaxmi Bank, Ratnakar Bank, J&K Bank and also Kotak Mahindra Bank were also on strike.

Employees of foreign banks like Citi Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Sonali Bank, Bank of America and others though very small in number are also on strike.

A section of employees and officers of Regional Rural Banks are also on strike, he added.

About one lakh bank branches remain closed and some others headed by senior officials were kept open as they did not participate in the strike.

However, there were no transactions in those branches as other staff were on strike.

Venkatachalam said cheques were drawn and private banks like ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank are getting cleared as they are not on strike.

The strike was called by the United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of several bank unions.

Venkatachalam said the strike is against the Union govt's move to privatise public sector banks (PSB) and to introduce the Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 in the current session of Parliament.

The passage of the Bill will enable the government to reduce their equity capital in the PSBs to less than 51 per cent and allow private hands to take over them.

The Union government had earlier said it would privatise two of its banks.

Venkatachalam said that at the conciliation meeting held in Delhi on Wednesday, where representatives of the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) and the Finance Ministry were also present, the unions reiterated that they would defer the strike if the Central government assures them that it would defer the introduction of Banking Laws (Amendment) Bill 2021 in Parliament.

According to him, the only issue being confronted with the PSBs was that of huge Non-Performing Assets (NPAs) in which the major share was that of big corporates.