Banking services crippled in Nagaland as bank employees begin 2-day strike
Public Sector Bank employees agitate outside the SBI’s Dimapur Regional Office on January 31 joining the all-India 2-day bank strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions from January 31-February 1. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | January 31
Banking came to a grounding halt on January 31 as Public Sector Banks in Nagaland shut down joining the all-India 2-day bank strike called by the United Forum of Bank Unions. The state units of the National Confederation of Bank Employees (NCBE) and the All India Bank Officers’ Confederation (AIBOC) assembled at the State Bank of India’s Dimapur Regional Office in demonstration against unfulfilled “wage revision settlement” pending since November 2017.
Defined working hours, 5-day banking, scrapping of the New Pension Scheme, improvement in family pension, allocation of staff welfare fund based on “Operating Profits” and equal wage for equal work for contract employees are some of the other demands that the bankers are agitating for.
If the demands are not met, the 2-day strike will be followed by a 3-day strike from March 11-13 and indefinite strike from April 1.
According to TAP Paul, Secretary of the Nagaland unit of the AIBOC, even private sector banks have shut down in solidarity, which will completely halt business transactions in the state for two days. Nagaland is said to have around a hundred bank branches, including private sector banks, and almost half of the total are based in Dimapur.
While expressing concern for the inconvenience caused to customers, Paul said that it is high time the Indian Bank Association seriously consider the demands. He held that the employees have been patiently negotiating without affecting banking services for the past 30 months.
Around a 100cr worth of business is said to be transacted per day by the banks in Nagaland, which implies, businesses as well as state government transactions will be severely crippled. “Cheques cannot be cleared and deposits cannot be made and ATMs will also be affected if they run out of cash,” he said. Online banking will remain functional however.
According to R Hasnu, President of the NCBE’s Nagaland unit, businesses cannot deposit the day’s proceeds and the two days will be hard for customers without online banking.
For an economy largely dependent on state government wages, the strike comes at a time of the month when banks start clearing salary bills.
While clearing the pending bills would take a day at most once work resumes, he said that inconvenience would be felt in the form of customer rush.
