VIJAYAWADA: Bank transactions in the district came to a grinding halt and people faced a hard time withdrawing cash from ATMs on Wednesday across Vijayawada and rural areas of the Krishna district following the call of nation-wide strike by nine bank unions, including public and private banks.
Reason: Protesting against the proposed merger of Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with Bank of Baroda (BoB). More than 620 ATMs closed down in the district due to back to back closure of banks in the district — a public holiday on Tuesday (Christmas) and the bank strike on Wednesday.
The unions under the aegis of United Forum of Bank Unions (UFBU) went on a strike opposing the merger of three banks and also other demands, including booking loan defaulters and privatisation of public banks.
“We are a part of the strike due to multiple reasons that impacted the banking sector. Merging small banks is not the solution to fight the crisis, even the big banks are not stable these days.
Instead of merging them, the government should come up with other reforms,” V Jaganmohan Rao, member, Bank Employees’ Union, Vijayawada chapter, said. The bank officers, who took part in the strike included employees from all public sector banks, old generation private banks, foreign banks, regional rural banks and cooperative banks.
This is a second bank strike within a week. The State-run bank unions had held a strike on December 21 opposing the merger.
‘Merging banks no solution to fight crisis’
In September, the Central government had announced merger of state-owned Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank with the Bank of Baroda. The merged entity be the third largest bank after SBI and HDFC Bank. The unions claimed that the merger was not in the interest of banks