MUMBAI: Over 60,000 employees protesting meagre wage hike of two per cent proceeded to a two-day strike crippling the banking operation on Wednesday, while the call of strike given by federation of farmers’ association to push for their pending demands too is likely to throw the normal life out of gear in Maharashtra over next couple of days.
Employees of all the 21 state-run commercial banks, regional rural banks, 13 old generation private banks and six foreign banks are participating in the protest, said representatives of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU), an umbrella body of nine bank unions, that had given the call for the strike. Some employees of the private and foreign banks, who are members of the union too have joined the strike, they said adding that both workers, as well as officers, are participating in the strike.
To mark the protests, the employees on strike also took out a march in the banking business district of south Mumbai.
Around 60,000 bank employees from nearly 12,000 bank branches in the state that deal with Rs 40 lakh crore of business are on strike, the union representatives claimed.
Devidas Tuljapurkar, convenor of the UFBU, said that while the bank employees have implemented all the flagship schemes of the union government over past four years with utmost dedication and in turn have increased their own workload need an appropriate compensation for the toil.
Meanwhile, milk and vegetable supply of Mumbai is likely to be affected due to call of bandh given by the federation of farmers’ associations – Rashtriya Kisan Mahasang (RKM). The agitation is to mark one year of the famous farmers’ agitation in the state that led to historic loan waiver.
“Though the state government announced the loan waiver, there are several issues regarding its implementation and the conditions applied to it. The issues raised by the recent long march of farmers too are far from being resolved. Our farmers are in bad shape and we have no other option than to go on a strike,” said Sandeep Gidde-Patil, core committee member of the RKM.
The RKM has identified 130 cities across India to give and edge to the agitation. However, the steering committee that drove the last year’s farmers’ agitation in the state has said that RKM doesn’t have any hold amongst the farmers. “We are sceptical of outcome,” said Vishwas Utagi, member of the steering committee adding that the steering committee would start its agitation on June 12 by storming the state secretariat in Mumbai.