Banks to resume work today

Banks across the state will resume regular functioning from Friday after the two-day nation-wide strike called by the Union Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) came to an end on Thursday.

On Thursday over 600 banks remained shut and employees staged protests till noon. Customers who were unaware about the strike kept coming to the banks and were left dejected.

“This strike has affected my business transactions”, said P.Shekhar, a businessman.

Addressing the striking bankmen at the State Bank of India’s Patny branch in Secunderabad, Member of Legislative Council K Nageshwar said the role of public sector banks was vital and and any move to privatise them would have disastrous affects on the country’s finances.

Bank stir in national interest: CPI

HYDERABAD: CPI general secretary Suravaram Sudhakar Reddy, who is also the president of AP Banking Employees Federation, has lauded the 10 lakh bank employees for going on strike for not any benefit but for protecting the Indian banking system from being handed over to multinational companies.

In a press release, he said such a move on the part of the government would only push back the banking sector to pre-nationalisation era.

Suravaram said that strike was observed demanding scrapping of the Khandelwal Committee recommendations which were detrimental to the industry and the employees.

The strike was for opposing reforms in the banking sector that were aimed at diluting the public sector character of the banks and handing over the hardearned savings of the public to private people. It was also for opposing outsourcing of bank jobs.

He reiterated that the CPI would oppose in Parliament the proposed bill to allow foreign banks to have major shares in Indian banks and to privatise public sector banks.